John, Peter and Valerie would be ashamed of me.

Here I am, a child of the Blue Peter generation, and my hands haven’t so much as touched a pipe cleaner or sticky-backed plastic in years, nor anything else you can use for making things.

Yet I am surrounded by people who are busy making stuff with their bare hands.

My friend Mike is making a wooden model of a Spitfire from a kit, and – although this is a story for another time – he is also intending to make a life-sized one.

I’m not surprised. He also made the lectern for the Swindon Festival of Poetry.

Nobody’s quite sure what he’s going to make next, in fact, probably not even Mike.

I have another friend called Brian who makes engines, and there seems to be almost no limit to what he can make one out of. One day I am going to go round to his house to find he has made one out of old copies of the Adver.

Then there’s Simon, whom I recently discovered has been making beautiful wooden pens in his shed, and has taught himself silversmithing in his spare time. He reckons he could soon get his own hallmark.

Roy, the lead guitarist in the band I used play in, owns dozens of guitars and plays them beautifully, which is impressive enough until you find out that some of them he made himself.

As for his wife, Jane: it would be quicker for me to tell you what she doesn’t make, rather than the things she does.

And it’s always fascinating to watch.

There is a telly programme that is constantly on a couple of cable channels, called How It’s Made, and it appeals to me so much that it might actually be my favourite programme of all time.

It features all manner of things being made – by hand, by robots or by mass production – and every one is riveting, even the one about riveting.

There are few things in life more satisfying than watching films of trombones, pretzels and springs being made.

Other people, such as my daughter, recognise how happy it makes my little brain if I am making something. After all, you can hardly avoid making things or mending things when you’re a dad.

Some of my happiest memories of bringing up our kids are the hours spent making things for them or with them – iced birthday cakes, a periscope, a model volcano, that scale model of a pillar box I made from scratch, from scraps, and, of course, Lego.

So no wonder that one of the presents my daughter bought me last Christmas was a beautiful little kit to make a tiny tin locomotive.

But I haven’t done it yet – partly because I haven’t had time, but also because I will be disappointed when I won’t have the making of it to look forward to.

At least there's one thing I'm good at making: excuses.

I’m not saying I’m not creative. I create lots of stuff out of words and pictures on computers, and also play the drums, which comes damned close to making music, but it's just not the same as making things with your bare hands.

And that’s not good enough - not only because I am from the Blue Peter generation, but also because I'm from Swindon, with its long history of making wonderful things (and it still does).

The first thing I am going to make is a list of things I intend to make, which I'll get around to, just as soon as I’ve made my workshop.