A few years ago, someone offered him £18,000 for what he still regards as the toughest piece he has made - a string quartet, sitting on a pinhead, with real strings made from a spider's web.

At the same time, he accepted a bid of £17,000 for his Statue of Liberty in the eye of a needle.

Pieces like that are now worth ten times more.

His subjects range from the classical - Rodin's Thinker sitting on a pin - to the contemporary - Oprah Winfrey in the eye of a needle and the Beckham family carved on a single cocktail stick.

His tiniest piece to date is a Scottish terrier standing on the point of an acupuncture needle; while his next project is to create a Little Red Riding Hood so small she could be gobbled up not just by a wolf but by a flea.

Money, Willard, insists, is not a driving force. He has a girlfriend - "she's always trying to tidy up the place"(no vacuuming, one hopes) - but lives alone and has few expensive tastes beyond remote-controlled helicopters.

He says he is not even interested in flying a real helicopter. Home, for now at least, is this rented two-up, two-down in a West Midlands cul- de- sac, plus a room in Jersey which he borrows when he wants to get away from everything.

"I do own some property somewhere and the people who manage my money are renting it out," he says, already bored by the subject.

"What I want is for people to appreciate what I do, to enjoy it and say: 'Wow!'."

As I leave, he says earnestly: "It's very nice of you to take an interest in my work, it really is. Do you really like it?"

For all his success, there is still something of that lonely, troubled schoolboy, hiding away with his ants and his toothpicks, craving appreciation from somewhere. Well, he certainly has it now and he deserves every last penny.

So what is Willard's ultimate ambition? "One day, I am going to do the Queen in her Coronation Coach with all the horses, too." And why not? If you're going to think small, then think big