'Back Room Boys' They Also Serve - Cable Maintenance
A London Transport staff poster in the 'Back Room Boys' series shows a man kneeling with a hammer and a woman in a red headscarf working on rows of cables, with a pencil drawing of a railway gantry above, captioned 'CABLE MAINTENANCE' and 'They also serve'. The tell is the virtue phrase 'They also serve' applied to maintenance staff (glittering generalities) and the depiction of ordinary workers at their jobs (plain-folks); it names no enemy and gives no figures.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1939
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- London Passenger Transport Board (London Transport); artist Fred Taylor; printed by The Baynard Press
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- Corporation
- Regime
- Churchill Government
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Reassure
- Themes
- Labor, Home front
- Event
- World War II
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Foreign Posters, retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Held by NARA, Unrestricted; UK wartime publication (1939-1945), hosted by owner decision
London Passenger Transport Board; artist Fred Taylor; The Baynard Press, National Archives and Records Administration, 44-PF-461c.
Text on the object
'BACK ROOM BOYS' CABLE MAINTENANCE 'THEY ALSO SERVE' LONDON TRANSPORT FRED TAYLOR THE BAYNARD PRESS
