This is a war savings street

When I was a kid we lived in Seddon; this much you'll remember from earlier entries :-) We lived in Station Road. Nailed up on a lamp post just across the road from our house was a faded enamel sign that announced - 'This is a war savings street'. At the time I had no idea what that meant.

In later years I discovered that sign was a relic of World War 2; my home suburbs contribution to the war effort in money; I haven't yet managed to find a list of the contribution in human life!

If you go to the corner of Elizabeth Street and Little Bourke Street Melbourne and then proceed eastward past the Australia Post shop you'll find an old building sandwiched between the Myers Building and what is now the post office. The last time I saw that building it was a Victorian Government office. If you look at the wall to the left of the main entrance you'll see some old lettering, weathered and painted out but still readable. It says 'The office of enemy war debts'. That writing dates from 1918 or thereabouts.