Picture it: It’s a fine day in Waterford. Wispy cloud hangs over the city with blue sky also in plentiful supply, it in turn reflecting onto the River Suir running under the old bridge en route to the Estuary.
Trees line the horizon beyond the spire of Christchurch while the Munster Express office is obscured by a shed occupying a position now filled by the city’s bus station.
A red bus is traversing the bridge while a man in a red shirt and sky blue slacks observes the city below from a lofty perch on Mount Misery, overhanging the Waterford-Dublin railway line.
One wonders is the man in question casting his eye upon this very page this very week. If he is, then TG4 want to hear from him.
The third series of ‘Cártaí Poist’, the TG4 television series (by Adare Productions) in which iconic scenes from picture postcards are recreated, is about to commence its third season.
And it’s seeking help from Waterfordians to identify those in the postcards featured here.
The pics, from the studio of John Hinde, also include a fine shot of Tramore’s Promenade, then lined with flags and including the old trampoline on which many a prospective gymnastic career was envisaged.
A beautiful overhead shot of a busy Newtown Cove also forms part of the TG4 identity parade – and this where Munster Express readers enter the fray.
“The series has been a great success – and that success has been largely dependent on all those people out there who have contacted us with information and helped us to find the people in these images,” said Adare’s Paula Kehoe.
“Most people are more than happy to return to the same spot and reminisce on the old days and the way their lives were when the photo was taken.”
She continued: “Each episode is a challenge for our presenter to trace the people locations and props featured in classic postcards from the sixties and seventies, and even eighties, and other older, rarer collector’s items.
“They then must place everything back in position and take a photo of the scene as it stands today. At the end of each show our guest takes their own postcard of the area.”
If you think you can help identify the people in any of these pictures, contact Adare Productions on 01 2843877, or email TG4postcards@eircom.net. There are more postcards with people waiting to be identified for viewing at www.tg4.ie/cartaipoist
“Ultimately we want to find out what became of these people whose images have been sent all around the world, and at the same time feature old postcards, that show Ireland to be a happy, romantic and mystical place,” added Paula Kehoe.
If you are the man on Mount Misery, then you know what to do; the same goes for the green-shorted ‘trampoliner’ in Tramore and the family nestling in the grass above Newtown Cove. The third series of ‘Cartaí Poist’ airs on TG4 from July.
