Careless Talk Costs Lives: "...strictly between these four walls!"
One of Fougasse's eight cartoon posters for the Ministry of Information's national campaign against careless talk, launched in February 1940. Two men gossip in armchairs, sure they are private, while the old portrait on the wall above them is Hitler in a periwig, listening. The claim that ordinary talk can cost lives is carried by a joke rather than a threat; unlike the U.S. 'Wanted! For Murder' poster, no one in the picture is blamed as a killer.
- Date
- 1940
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- UK Ministry of Information; artist Fougasse (Cyril Kenneth Bird)
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Chamberlain Government
- Leader
- Neville Chamberlain
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Warn or inform
- Themes
- Security and surveillance, Home front
- Event
- World War II
- Techniques
- Fear appeal
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- Library of Congress, retrieved September 27, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (UK Crown copyright expired; LOC: no known restrictions on publication in the U.S.)
Fougasse (Cyril Kenneth Bird) for the UK Ministry of Information. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, POS - Gr Brit .B57, no. 18.
Text on the object
Fougasse "....strictly between these four walls!" CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES
"Fougasse" is the artist's handwritten signature in the top-left corner of the sheet, not a caption; included because it is legible printed/inked text on the object itself.
