buttons, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

This unpleasant-looking character is called the Squander Bug, and it was created during the Second World War by artist Phillip Boydell, an employee of the National Savings Committee. The cartoon bug appeared in press adverts and poster campaigns as a menace who encouraged shoppers to waste money rather than buy war savings certificates.

In 1942, the first of over 1.5 million American servicemen arrived on British shores in preparation for the Allied offensives against Germany during the Second World War. That year, the United States' War Department published Instructions for American Servicemen in Britain to help soldiers, sailors and airmen – many of whom had never travelled abroad before – adjust to life in a new country.