Plans also are afoot for a clockwork water sterilisation unit

Plans also are afoot for a clockwork water sterilisation unit. Once again using radio as a power source for simple electrolysis, sodium hypochlorite - the basis of household bleach - could be manufactured from salt and water. In regions where AIDS is now endemic, with mothers passing the virus to babies through their breast milk, the advantage of cheap sterile water to make up formula milk is incalculable."Who would have thought that off the back of a radio - this thing that churns out music and entertainment in our kitchen - we would be talking about sorting out world literacy and infant mortality?" Baylis says. "In four or five years we could have a staggering universe of clockwork devices."The spiralling humanitarian applications of his invention is a source of terrific satisfaction to Baylis, who developed his prototype after watching a documentary about the difficulty of implementing AIDS-education programmes in countries with underdeveloped communications systems."I was sitting there watching this when I had a kind of dream of me sitting in the Sudan, like some old English colonel with a monocle and fly swat, listening to a raunchy number by Dame Nellie Melba on my wind-up gramophone. And I just thought, if you can get all that noise by dragging a nail round a piece of old Bakelite using a spring, maybe we could use a spring to drive a dynamo that could drive a radio."Baylis would not, however, like to be thought of as a "do-gooder"."It's not the cross of Jesus I'm holding before me, it's a soldering iron," he states. "I was sexually abused in Sunday school - this sanctimonious guy in a dog collar perpetrating the most foul acts on a five-year-old in the name of The Lord, The Father and The Holy Ghost; so as far as I'm concerned, the last Christian died on the cross."This early trauma, Baylis believes, shaped the course of his career.

Architect James Dunnett, who worked for Goldfinger from 1973-5 and has been largely responsible for restoring his reputation, battled unsuccessfully to save Player House, which he describes as "one of the two most significant" post-war private works by the architect.The other, according to Dunnett, is Perry House in Windlesham, Surrey, which is Goldfinger's last completed work and so far unlisted. He says there is "a slight question mark" over it because it has just been sold and is a fairly modest building standing in substantial grounds, making it an ideal candidate for demolition and replacement with a larger house."He did not build very much. His output only really lasted one decade, between 1958 and 1968, so there isn't that much around," he says.Dunnett has worked tirelessly to safeguard Goldfinger's legacy and more recently his task has been made easier, he acknowledges, by the National Trust's purchase of Willow Road, which lent the architect more credibility."My concern has been to try to give some prominence to his ideas - as a personality he is not regarded as such a threat, partly because he's dead. There will never be another building like it."She, James Dunnett, English Heritage and others are still waiting to hear about that decision from Culture minister Tony Banks. English Heritage made its recommendation - for listing at grade 11 - back in March 1997. One reason for the delay is thought to be a debate over whether to give the building the ultimate accolade of a grade I listing, putting a concrete council tower block on the same footing as other famous London landmarks such as St Paul's Cathedral.Willow Road is open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from 12 to 5, with last admission at 4, from April to October.

Thus, on display are Goldfinger's rather poor efforts to copy a painted stone by Max Ernst, an unsightly television and various trinkets collected on travels, including a woolly mammoth.All this accumulated junk is at odds with the stereotype of a modern architect and tends to humanise Goldfinger, allowing a warmer picture of him to emerge - an effect heightened by a photograph of the architect with his mother in her room at Willow Road, where the clean lines and open spaces of his architecture have been entirely consumed by an abundance of opulent Austro-Hungarian furniture.With the house starting to pay its way, the future of Willow Road is secure and, other than the possible question mark over Perry House, the rest of Goldfinger's canon also appears to be safe. Back on the 24th floor of the Trellick Tower, Mrs Boland is adamant on the subject of its proposed listing: "It's a wonderful idea It would be a crying shame if we don't get listed status. That is largely due to the work of James Dunnett and the goodwill engendered by the quality of the buildings themselves, once initial prejudices about concrete and Modernism are overcome. "As for visitors, we get comments congratulating the Trust and asking it to find more of the same type of building." But what is most refreshing about the house and the way it has been set up by the Trust is the impression that its owners have just left the room in a hurry. Food tins are still in the kitchen cupboard and Goldfinger's desk is untidy.There also seems to have been little attempt by the Trust or the family to rewrite history by sanitising the house or removing objects which don't fit the desired picture or official version. The house offers a remarkable insight into a particular era and lifestyle - that of the original left wing, moneyed and intellectual chattering classes that were present as Modernism briefly came to take a hold of Hampstead.Small tours, often led by retired architects, start in a cinema located in one of the converted garages with a film on the Goldfingers and the house, and progress through the hall and up the spiral staircase via dining room, studio, living room, study, bedrooms and bathrooms."The staff are all enormously proud of the property and appreciate the immaculate quality of its design and detailing," Harriet McKay says.

Once you step inside, it is easy to see why the Trust bought it and why the London Tourist Board gave it the Small Visitor Attraction award. Willow Road curator Harriet McKay, who lives in a ground flat within the house, says the London Tourist Board award validated the Trust's decision to buy it. Rising visitor numbers are also a justification, with up to 5,000 expected this year and Saturdays regularly being a sell-out.Visiting Willow Road now, it is hard to imagine that its design was once the subject of such controversy and caused a debate in the national press. It is a modest terrace, mainly built of brick, though parts of the concrete frame are visible and the first floor window arrangement is certainly unusual. Willow Road became the first building designed by a modernist architect to be acquired by the Trust in what was regarded as a radical departure. In all, four generations of the family lived there until Ursula Goldfinger died in 1994, seven years after Erno.The National Trust became involved when death duties threatened to split the house from its excellent collection of modern art - which includes works by Henry Moore, Max Ernst, Man Ray, and Amedee Ozenfant. I suddenly realised I was talking to the architect and I'd put my foot in it.