Model, display model

Squander bug display model from Pinner shop window, 1942-1944. This object is a rare example of a 3D Squander Bug, a cartoon character invented by London ad man Phillip Boydell during the Second World War. The National Savings Committee, seeing large sums of money paid for the few goods available which they believed would be better spent on Savings Certificates, wanted to ridicule extravagance without being boring or adding to the ‘Don’ts’ so prevalent in Government propaganda. One wet Sunday morning during a bout of flu, Boydell produced a set of drawings of a mobile Money Grub who could ‘push, pull, scratch, steal and bite’. The scheme was accepted and used almost as it stood, except for the change of name.

The unmistakable creature, covered with swastikas, cackled his way with glee through the shops, impoverishing housewives and helping the enemy by wasting resources. Taken up by cartoonists with enthusiasm in press advertisements and posters across the world, Squander Bug is considered one of the success stories of war publicity.

A small boy fell in love with this unusual creature in a local shop window, in Field End Road, Eastcote (now Pinner). They cherished Squander bug for nearly 7 decades until they donated it to the Museum of London in 2021.

The donor recalls: ‘I lived with my parents in Eastcote, when I passed by the shop and (odd child) 'fell in love' with S/b. The window was taken up by posters and other propaganda exhorting against squander of any sort, including S/b himself. This was sometime between 1942 and 1944, when I was about 2 - 3 years old. I am sure you will understand that although I retain a clear mental image of my first sight of the window and its display, memory does not allow recall of exact dates and ages.

I seem to have pestered my parents so much, that my father persuaded the shop owner to release S/b into my care when the window display was dismantled, when I was 3 or 4. I believe that my parents may have been customers of the shop. The shop may well have been Dancer & Green, which I just remember as a greengrocers, If not, it was a shop in the same block. S/b has been with me ever since. He is a little the worse for age but continues to look down on me in my study.’

It is likely that this was a one-off, handmade Squander bug made for the grocer's display. Only one other 3D Squander bug is known to be existence, a target practice in the Imperial War Museum collection.