I DON'T want to alarm anybody, but I now have proof of widescale witchcraft going on in Swindon, writes GRAHAM CARTER.

I have suspected this for many years.

As a rule its perpetrators don’t ride broomsticks, but it is witchcraft, nonetheless.

I know because I visited one of their covens in conjunction with my minor involvement in the recent grand opening of the Richard Jefferies Halt on the impressive CWR (or Coate Water Railway, to give it its full name).

The secretary of the group of modellers who operate the railway is a nice lady called Hilary, whom I met in their clubhouse.

As we talked, half a dozen modellers chatted with each other while tinkering with bits of machinery.

Traditional witchcraft involves casting spells with toe of toad and eye of newt, and the type they do at Coate is the same, only they use other materials, which are just as mysterious.

I am talking about solenoids, cams, pulleys and the like, which we have all heard of and might even have a basic understanding of their purpose, but unlike cults such as the CWR, we could never make them do anything.

Another witch friend of mine is called Brian. He makes all kinds of impressive models, and when I visit his house it is in trepidation about the latest kind of spooky motor he has been experimenting with.

Once he showed me one that seemed to be powered by nothing in particular, and that was probably when I first realised these men have a big book of spells hidden somewhere in their homes, which they use to conjure up dark forces.

There is even suspected witchcraft going on in our family as my older brother has not only mastered soldering, which I never have, but has been known to dabble in even stranger crafts. He even knows some of the secrets of welding.

There is no scale for measuring how handy people are, so I have invented one: the Carter Universal Skills Scale, or CUSS for short, which is fitting as that’s what I usually do when I am trying to make something in my shed.

To be fair, I am pretty handy if you compare me with some, especially younger people, many of whom are still trying to work out which end of a screwdriver is the handle.

I can, for instance, do basic plumbing in an emergency, and I know how to work a concrete mixer.

The CUSS scale goes from zero to ten, and I reckon I score about four.

But most of the people I have been talking about here can make anything out of anything, which gives them a CUSS rating of about 400.

Where these supernatural powers comes from is not clear.

My friend Brian is the son of the man who invented the record changer and was a senior manager at Garrard, so it’s in his blood.

The others just seem to be of the right generation or are ex-railwaymen, so learned magical skills it in their apprenticeship, much the same as Harry Potter.

Or perhaps there’s something in the Swindon water.

Witchcraft or not, I think the authorities should be looking to harness their powers and get them to work together on one big project.

If it was up to me, I would have them building a full-scale working replica of a Saturn V rocket that we could land on the moon.

They might need somebody to aim it for them and tell them exactly when to press the button, but as far as I can see the only other thing preventing them from doing it is finding a big enough shed.