THE next time Q's short on gadgets for a James Bond movie, he ought to pop along to George Webb's shed. There, he could pick up on the windmill-powered boat, the fold-away all-terrain scooter or the thing that tests the power of your golf swing, to name but a few of the bright ideas George has had over the years.

Sadly, like an old time prospector, he has yet to strike gold.

"I tend to overestimate the market for a new invention," he said. "Then I find out no one wants to buy it. So I go on to something else."

It's been like that for 40 years, ever since George quit a steady career with Customs and Excise inspecting Scottish distilleries.

"A job full of occupational hazards," as he put it.

His bosses wanted him to be based in London - but he didn't and so he left, setting up home with wife Pam in a country cottage in Rosses Lane, Wichenford, which they bought for £3,750 back in 1964 complete with the shed. That's when George Webb became an inventor, beavering away at all hours among the clutter and the smell of lubricating oil. However, the success of his first gadget rather over-egged the pudding.

"Domestic hydraulics were in their infancy and I came up with a cheap and cheerful car jack," he said. "I began selling it through Exchange and Mart and then a Birmingham firm got involved and bought the patent for £5,000.

"I thought this is dead jammy. After all, it paid for the cottage."

His next idea was a hoist to lift engines out of cars and that also seemed a winner.

"Pam did all the paperwork and we worked day and night and made about £1,100 in a year. All in the shed. Then it just petered out. You get what you think are brilliant ideas and then they fall flat."

Undeterred by failure to make any significant inroads into mass commercial markets, George has contented himself with producing gadgets for individual causes, such as the hydraulic lift he designed for a young farmer paralysed in a work accident, to drive a tractor while still in his wheelchair.

Or the mouth-operated device for a little girl with brittle bone disease which meant she could use a keyboard to write.

Many are the folk who have beaten a path through George Webb's garden to his shed over the years and, like me, probably had to be careful where they trod.

Opening the car door, I nearly tripped over a metal pipe that was obviously destined to be a key part for something or other.

A paint sprayer stood on a table surrounded by assorted containers and there was the paraphernalia of invention everywhere - disjointed parts that one day might make a whole.

All this can be traced back to his childhood when George and his dad spent hours building models out of Meccano.

"I've always liked using my hands and been inventive," he said. "Designs sort of evolve as I go along. It's seat of your pants stuff - and then I add a bit on for safety."

Over the years, he's registered around 30 patents, but is resigned to the reality that as a small fish in an large pond, any good idea he has is going to be swallowed up by large companies, if not here, then certainly abroad.

"It costs thousands of pounds to protect an idea," he explained. "And then thousands more if you have to go to court." George showed me what I thought was an excellent device he had made for lifting heavy bales on farms. It featured three spikes and two grabs, top and bottom.

"If I registered that, the Japanese would come along and add an extra spike or make it different in some other small way and I'd be stuffed. I've made a couple for local farmers - but it's not worth going beyond that."

So he contents himself with tinkering along quietly, although his output still appears full of potential. About 10 years ago, George came up with a multi-adjustable cycle for disabled children, which was used very successfully in a Worcester school.

Then there are his sledges that go beneath portable buildings so they can be moved short distances on site, or the hydraulic legs for temporary buildings he designed for no lesser brains than the boffins of the RRE at Malvern.

There was even a pressure valve used on the oil testing rig for the trials of Concorde. So it's not all small beer.

Less successful was the windmill powered boat - too unstable - or the machine that tested the strength of a golfer's swing.

Apparently, they didn't want to know. Undoubtedly the most popular of his output has been Spike, the mechanical scarecrow that dominates an area of Webbs garden centre at Wychbold - children love it.

"It's about the only known example of kids dragging their parents into a garden centre," he laughed.

Now that is some invention.