Presenter Joan Bakewell turned up at the gallery showing Wilf's bikes and asked him if he would like to be on television. Slightly the worse for drink Wilf immediately said yes, then asked when, and was told 'TONIGHT!' And so it was that he appeared on Late Night Line Up.

From there we have Tony Hart to thank for Wilf's entrance into the mainstream. Wilf had made a number of machines which were going to be demonstrated on Vision On, and Tony was going to do the necessary presenting. However he pointed out that since Wilf was the inventor he should be the one to operate them.

Wilf doesn't actually do much cycling now, but when he did it was on a three-wheeler which he points out is the one I will have remembered being rendered as the full-size worm catcher. This was for a show called Game for a Laugh and demonstrated absurdity and genius working together.

It turns out the bike has quiet history: "I've still got it with it's Ape Hanger handle bars. It was also used to deliver a loaf of bread diguised as a parrot with an oxo cube on it's head to the Duke of Bedford during a meat shortage. It was intended to be an alternative food for the lions. Unfortuneately the lions too savage to approach. So they hired a cub which promptly pissed all over his Grace."

With more than 30 bicycle inventions under his belt you would think that Wilf would feel the job had been done, but it turns out that he has yet to finish the collection, and hopes to get back to making bicycle models again soon. First off the line is to be the 'King Herod Fat Child Exercisor' though apparently "the tiny swords were such a problem."

Such a possible model hints at the refreshingly non-politically correct stance held by Wilf. And with other models such as the 'Stammerer's C... c... c... c... cycle' and the 'Amputees or Unsuccessful Muslim Burglar's Getaway Cycle' filling out the collection it would be easy to label Wilf as anachronistic. But far better to regard him, and his work, as an utterly necessary break from the monotony.

There is a thought, creativity and application here which is missing from much in the modern world, and more than a slight hint at the fact that we really all need to lighten up a little.

Wilf's favourite bicycle model (and mine) remains the worm catcher. Perhaps the model made real pulls more on the nostalgia strings. His favourite invention were the 'Good Bye Machines', but for me the sight of a grown man dressed in a bizarre 'Apocalypse Cow' outfit will live long in the memory. I wonder if the bovine weapons have ever got him out of a tricky situation: "The apocalyspe cow has never got me out of a tricky situation but it certainly got me into one in a shopping centre. I was on a radio show when the D.J. asked how it worked. I fired it. Unfortunately it alarmed a throng of old ladies watching. They were angry. Suprisingly they blamed the D.J. for asking me to fire it. I beat a hasty retreat".