Extract from PhD
thesis. © Rebecca Lewis, 2004
The Second World
War was often perceived as a classless ‘People’s
War’ because, regardless of any prevailing
inequality and exploitation, ‘the nation is
always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship’. Propaganda was needed to appeal
to the masses, including a reasoned appeal that
would ‘show the extent to which every man and
woman is a participant in the war’, and the
importance of a combined team effort. Although it was ‘impossible
to foresee’ what conditions would prevail during
the first weeks of war, it was felt necessary to
prepare for the worst. The MOI was to assume that
the public would be subjected to an appalling series
of shocks, resulting in shattered nerves, a lack
of confidence in ultimate success, and therefore
a lack of will to work for victory. It was expected that there would
be ‘an imperative need for a copious issue
of general reassurance material’, particularly
in the early months of the war, which would be the
sole responsibility of the MOI. Disregarding Leeper’s conviction that it was impossible to prepare
effective propaganda in advance, the government started planning
for the first posters in earnest in early 1939. By mid-June
1939 the first poster-roughs were ready for inspection.
In April 1939,
members of the HPC were asked to come up with a
selection of slogans and motifs from which to build
poster designs. The first posters were to ‘stand
out strikingly from among the numerous posters which
would be issued by other Departments’. Posters were to ‘bear a
distinctive uniform device’, making it ‘difficult or
impossible for the enemy to print reproductions’.
Pictorial distinction was to be achieved by using
leading artists whose work would be associated with
the MOI; typographical distinction by the use of
a ‘special and handsome type’. Initial designs were to include
a message ‘from the King to his people’. It was decided that the message
should ‘go out as far as possible in the form
in which the King himself would send it’, but
using fine type rather than imitation typescript.
Rather than a photograph, a crown would head the
poster. Sir William Codling, suggesting a short,
single-sheet message, prepared suggestions in a
suitable format. Later in the war, it was recognised
that the nation was ‘constituted through shared
and anonymous suffering and heroism’, and thus
the booklet Front Line, produced by the MOI in 1942 contained only one quote from
Churchill, and no pictures of royalty.
The above poster
was to be accompanied by a ‘reassurance poster’,
which would ‘steady the people and assure them
that all necessary measures to defend England’
had been taken. The aims for the first poster
were ambitious. It was agreed that the first poster
slogan, supported by the pictorial design, should
if possible: ‘attract immediate attention and
evoke a spontaneous reaction’; ‘exert
a steadying influence’; ‘incite to action’;
‘harmonise with general preconceived ideas
among the public’; ‘be short’; and
‘be universal in appeal’. The initial poster was to stress
‘an attitude of mind’, rather than an
aim, as it was assumed that the public would appreciate
the issues involved at the start of war. Nicolson advocated that the initial ‘dignified design’
should be supplemented by a poster with a ‘more
colloquial appeal’, such as one ‘incorporating
a historical progression from the medieval English
bowman to the typical modern citizen.’ Posters would also include a
‘statement of the duty of the individual citizen’,
which would be non-pictorial and in more than one
colour, and a poster warning against enemy propaganda.
Although experts
were consulted for slogans, the slogan for the first poster
was suggested by Waterfield,
a career civil servant. Concerned that posters along
the lines of ‘Keep Steady’ were uninspiring,
and implied that the nation was on the defensive,
Waterfield called for ‘a rallying war-cry that will bring
out the best in everyone of us and put us in an
offensive mood at once’. He suggested three
ideas: a play on Kitchener (figure 2), with ‘Your King and Country need you all’, appealing not just to the men
to fight, but to ‘every man, woman and child’.
Second, he suggested that it was the will of the
nation that would win or lose the war, and suggested
‘Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution
will Bring us Victory’. Third, he felt there
was a need for a reminder that it is the task of
the nation to destroy Nazism and everything it stood
for. Waterfield did not
believe that he had the wording right on any of
these, but favoured the last.
As production
could take a ‘considerable time’, designs
were to be printed, and distributed regionally,
in advance, ‘so that, when necessary, the posters
could be placarded throughout
the country with a minimum of delay’. The initial posters were expected
to be of ‘an exceptional size’, and to
be ‘displayed on more than ordinarily extensive
sites’, such as the sides of buildings, such
as figure 61. It was planned that HMSO would be
responsible for the printing of posters, and that
an advertising concern would be called on to arrange
for the display of posters after they had been printed.
Mr Surrey Dane and Mr Huxley were responsible for
work on the first posters, and agreed to secure
the services of artists capable of doing quick roughs
for poster designs. It was agreed that the poster
art-work should be of a high standard, at least
equal to, or better than, the highest commercial
standard, but that it should make an essentially
popular appeal.
Posters were expected
to be displayed for eight weeks at a time. Original
plans were to commission five designs, with expert
advisors pressing for immediate printing for all
five, a valid ‘insurance premium in view of
the immensity of the risk’. The Ministry, concerned that
this ‘might involve considerable waste in view
of possible changes of policy’, was ‘content’ to ask
for authority to print from only one design. The
proviso was that another four designs were commissioned
immediately, rather than waiting for the start of
hostilities, as they were unsure ‘how quickly
suitable designs’ could be produced under wartime
conditions. As was good commercial practice,
the first poster was to be in six colours. Anticipated costs for the first
poster were £20,600 for printing, packing and storing
five million posters, and £225 for the design. Figures were prepared by Surrey
Dane of Odham’s Press,
on the Publicity Planning Committee of the Ministry,
and were largely accepted by HMSO as reasonable. Fees to artists for design needed
to allow for accepted roughs and finished art work,
adaptation to different sizes and proportions, including
reproportioning of lettering. Commissioned roughs needed to
be paid for even if ‘not accepted for the finished
design’. A significant number of extra
posters were required for ‘renewals’ for
outdoor display in order to keep sites in good order.
Surrey Dane worked
in consultation with Benson’s preparing estimates
for costs, for the nation-wide campaign, to include
Wales and Northern
Ireland. It was expected that the MOI
should pay in the normal way for sites, but seek
preferential rates as was usual for large orders. Estimates were prepared according
to traditional commercial costs, although it was
anticipated that prices could fall on the outbreak
of war. Both voluntary sites and commercial sites
were categorised. The posters, once printed, were
‘parcelled and stored in London ready for immediate
dispatch to local distribution centres’ at
an appropriate time in the emergency period. Posters were to be distributed
in bulk ready for local distribution: commercial
sites through Bensons, railway platform sites, old
EMB sites, newsagents boards, Office of Works, Ministry
of Labour, local authorities, LPTB Underground and
buses and trolley buses, from 15” x 10”
to 48-sheet sizes. Smaller amounts, from 15”
x 10” to 16-sheet sizes were to be distributed
to the GPO, schools, cinemas, works, co-operative
societies, hotels, public houses and builders. Posters
sized 15” x 10” to double crown, were
provided to banks, van sides, shop windows and interiors,
places of worship, National Savings Committee, hospitals
and clinics, and 50,000 of a special design for
display in empty and wrecked houses. It was calculated that, once
the sites were secured, and the finished posters
delivered to Benson’s, a nation-wide display
could be effected by that firm within twenty-four
hours. Voluntary, non-commercial sites were considered
important, particularly in rural areas, where commercial
sites did not cover. These sites included shops
and shop-windows; government and municipal buildings;
village halls, women’s institutes and private
houses. Posters on these sites would be standardised
to crown and double crown sizes. The danger of such
sites was the juxtaposition of official publicity
posters with other miscellaneous posters, ‘detracting
from the effect of the former’. Although in general the largest
site was most effective, small posters outside the
newsagents’ shops below eye level attracted
special notice people were used to reading such
placards all the time in order to get news.
The poster with
a proclamation from the King was to be ‘plastered
everywhere in order to drive the contents into everyone’s
head’. By August 1939 war was regarded
as inevitable, and by 9 August the finished
drawings were submitted to Macadam for final approval.
Any adaptations to proportions would then be made
and the posters printed. By 23 August the proportions
to be printed were decided. The percentages were:
‘Freedom is in Peril’ (for remote areas),
12% (figure 22); ‘Keep Calm and Carry on’,
65%; and ‘Your Courage, etc.’, 23% (figure
1). The Treasury had approved costs
for a single poster, three designs were produced,
exceeding estimates by under £50. “Our Fighting
Men Depend on You” for factories, works, docks
and harbours, was also printed, for which no allowance
had originally been made. By September, ‘Your Courage’
and ‘Freedom is in Peril’ were already
being posted throughout the country. ‘Keep
Calm and Carry on’ was printed and held in
reserve for when the necessity arose, for example,
a severe air-raid, although it was never actually
displayed. Soon after war was declared, the small
poster ‘Don’t Help the Enemy, Careless
Talk may give away vital secrets’ (figure 62)
was approved by the War Office and was ready to
put into production. 58,000 copies had already been
distributed by September 17, and 75,000 copies were
to be despatched daily from September 26. By the end of September 1939,
roughs for further designs had been prepared and
approved, including messages from the King and the
Queen, designs specifically for factories and docks,
and designs specifically for each branch of the
armed services: reassurance, not recruiting, posters.
Coverage is extensive
in the archives on the first few posters produced
by the MOI, and so also receives much subsequent
historical comment, much of it negative. Mass-Observation
(M-O) had been asked by the MOI, on September 26 1939, to ‘report on the red Government Posters and their effects,
in general; to report on dissatisfaction with the
posters and the reasons for them in particular’.
On October 1 1939 MOI said that it
could no longer use outside agencies, but M-O decided
to complete the work, following the original terms
of reference, believing that the work was essential. Working without financial or
official support, M-O observers worked without authority,
and ‘against the difficulty of spy-fear’. The ‘Your Courage’
poster was remembered by several questionnaire respondents,
although no other early posters were mentioned.
They were seen in the window of the Butcher’s
shop in Eastleigh, ‘on the way to school or work in Winchester’, in the engineering works, and believed to be the result
of a political speech. The poster was clearly remembered
from Barnstaple in Devon, when, as a schoolboy, his ‘home town… blossomed with crimson
posters’. He remembered that ‘these posters
were much maligned’, although the reason was
unclear.
A journalist from
the Daily Mail was critical of the ‘Your Courage’ slogan for
being too complex, passing the poster six times
every day, he was still unable to precisely remember
the slogan. Someone from the Ministry of
Health, critical of the HPD as responsible for the
‘Your Courage’ posters, believed that
it was run by people ‘full of vague ideas’,
with little ‘practical experience in the conduct
of publicity campaigns’. Within the M-O survey, ‘Your
Courage’ was the second most-mentioned remembered
slogan, and nearly all comment was disparaging.
The message had been impacted by sheer repetition
but whether it had been remembered in the right
spirit was questionable: it still existed everywhere,
and was deemed mostly annoying and inappropriate
for the wartime situation. The wording of ‘Your
Courage… will bring us victory’
was criticised. There was some evidence the combination
of ‘your’ and ‘us’ ‘suggested
to many people that they were being encouraged to
work for someone else’, with the ‘your’
referring to the civilian, the ‘us’ to
the Government. It was pointed out that the slogan
‘Your King and Country needs you’ had
avoided such a defect and in future, more care should
be taken to avoid slogans that disassociated the
civilian from the government. ‘Freedom is in
Peril’ was also deemed ineffective, blamed
on ‘the abstractness of the words, not one
of which had any popular appeal’. Even during the planning stages
the criticism had been raised that ‘Freedom’
was rather an abstract concept and was ‘likely
to be too academic and too alien to the British
habit of thought’.
As usual there
was little indication as to what the public felt
about such exhortations, and little appreciation
found its way into print. The
Times had described the posters as ‘egregious
and unnecessary exhortations’, ‘insipid
and patronising invocations’, which were unneeded
and wasteful of funds, comparing the posters unfavourably
to those produced by the French. The Times leader paved the way for questions about the campaign in
the House of Commons, regarding the cost of the
current campaign, and expected costs of future campaigns.
Grigg defended the cost
of the campaign, expected to be no more than £23,000
by its termination in October, most for site rental. The Daily Express header the day after Grigg’s
announcement of cost was ‘Waste and Paste’.
The exhortations were described as ‘foolish’
as people ‘are
prepared to fight’, but when they turned up
at recruiting offices they were turned away as the
government was not ready to accept them.. Brigadier V.M.C. Napier, commented,
via a letter to The
Times:
Is
it wise, to say the least, to placard the countryside
with posters calling on the courage and resolution
of the individual when no appreciable demands have
yet been made on these qualities?
The MOI had expected
the nation to have to deal with immediate bombardment,
but this did not happen. Once the Phoney War was
over, Advertiser’s
Weekly noted that the nation had finally arrived
at the point of ‘courage, cheerfulness and
resolution’. People could finally obey the
exhortations of posters that had become all too
familiar to ‘us’ over twelve long months.
Responsibility
for the failure of campaigns was placed squarely
with the government as it meant that, either the
people had not been made to feel the urgency of
the message, or that ‘the leaders have not
spoken in a language which the people can understand
and respond to’. Beable,
the President of London Poster Advertising Association,
felt the MOI should be given due credit as well
as criticism. They had acted quickly with the posters,
working within the necessity for wording and design
to be simple for prompt reproduction and quick absorption.
The colour scheme (pillar box red and white) was
clever in contrast, both attractive and effective.
He felt that the poster had succeeded in getting
the public ‘war conscious, war energetic, yet
war calmly minded’, as it had certainly been
noticed by the journalists. Possibly reacting to criticism
that they had spent too much money on posters, in
October 1939, it was decided to cancel the programme
of press advertising and the use of commercial poster
sites. Steps were taken to give publicity to the
material already prepared, through designs suitable
to voluntary poster sites.
