Careless Talk Costs Lives (Fougasse: "...but of course it mustn't go any further!")
Two men talk face to face in a railway carriage while two bodies in nets above the compartment fall in a red-bordered cartoon. The caption in the speaker's voice, '...but of course it mustn't go any further!', sits above the slogan 'Careless Talk Costs Lives'. The tell for fear-appeal is the pairing of the casualties with a single prescribed remedy, keeping quiet.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1939
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- Fougasse (Cyril Kenneth Bird), artist; issuing department not printed on the visible sheet
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Churchill Government
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Warn or inform
- Themes
- Home front, Security and surveillance
- 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 Crown-copyright-era wartime print, hosted by owner decision
Fougasse (Cyril Kenneth Bird). National Archives and Records Administration, 44-PF-130.
Text on the object
Fougasse "..... but of course it mustn't go any further!" CARELESS TALK COSTS LIVES
