---
title: Fence or guard all openings
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-fence-or-guard-all-openings-keely-1942/
description: A black ladder rises toward a bright open hatch in a dark expanse, with the line 'Fence or guard all openings'.
section: Collection
---

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3. Fence or guard all openings

[![Fence or guard all openings, 1942 UK poster: A black ladder rises toward a bright open hatch in a dark expanse, with the line](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-fence-or-guard-all-openings-keely-1942.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/uk-fence-or-guard-all-openings-keely-1942.jpg)

# Fence or guard all openings

A black ladder rises toward a bright open hatch in a dark expanse, with the line 'Fence or guard all openings'. The fear appeal is implied rather than shown: the empty void around the ladder suggests a fall, and no injury is depicted.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
FENCE OR GUARD ALL OPENINGS
Issued by the Ministry of Labour and National Service and produced by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents,
Terminal House, 52, Grosvenor Gardens, London, S.W.1.
ML/42
Printed by LOXLEY BROS. LTD.
[signature in the artwork:] Pat Keely
```

[← Don't Waste Here the Fuel You Save at Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-dont-waste-here-the-fuel-you-save-at-home-1942/) [Headache for Hitler: It Takes More Than 12 Tons of Coal to Make This Torpedo →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/uk-headache-for-hitler-12-tons-of-coal-torpedo-1942/)

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- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)
