Careless talk costs lives: ".....but of course it musn't go any further!"

British Second World War cautionary poster issued by the Ministry of Information. It depicts two men talking in a railway carriage with Herman Goering and Adolf Hitler sitting in the luggage racks overhead. The image is in the upper half of the poster with text in black beneath. Both are set against a white background framed with a red border. This one is part of a series of 'careless talk costs lives' posters by Cyril Kenneth Bird (1887-1965). He began his career as an engineer, but was badly injured at Gallipoli in World War One. Bird, who was a Punch cartoonist, took on the 'Fougasse' pseudonym in the First World War, after the French term for a small land mine 'which might or might not hit the mark'. Fougasse's 'careless talk costs lives' campaign was stunningly successful in the Second World War. His approach to the propaganda poster was based on overcoming three obstacles. He wrote:

'Firstly, a general aversion to reading any notice of any sort; secondly, a general disinclination to believe that any notice, even if it was read, can possibly be addressed to oneself; thirdly, a general unwillingness even so to remember the message long enough to do anything about it.' In overcoming these obstacles, Fougasse used a simple approach: humour, simple stylisation and the uncomplicated communication of messages.
It was first published in February 1940 as a series of different designs relating to 'careless talk'.
Bird produced his posters for many different British Ministries during the war, and always did so for free.


This item has been digitised with funding provided by Commonwealth Government.