W itches in the West Country? Of course there were and I'm not referring to the half-pint size that trooped the streets last Saturday bashing on your door, demanding goodies.

I'm talking real ones – on the whole – though that rather depends what you mean by real.

Wookey is number one, I suppose, in the witchery stakes, though I've known a few old trouts (and not so old) perfectly worthy of the name.

The dynamics of witches are a bit confusing. Basically calling someone an old witch doesn't make them the sort who make soup from eye of newt. Causing trouble does, so think "neighbour from hell" and you're half way there.

Anyway, just because someone wears a pointed hat does not put them into the neighbour from hell category. Where did the pointed hat thing come from, anyway?

I do remember reading somewhere that riding a broomstick had a very sexual connotation – so I won't mention it. This is a family newspaper, after all.

To be quite honest I think haggard old ladies with hooked noses and warts used their sweeping brushes (broomsticks) to get rid of the spider's webs, cat's hair and dust that easily accumulates in mean hovels with dirt floors and a hole in the roof.

But let's go back to the pointy hat. Medieval ladies were very partial to the wearing of pointy hats. Lesser ladies – those who tilled the soil and fed the chickens – didn't earn enough to run to that sort of millinery.

For the most part they covered their heads with a bonnet tied under the chin. Some had a long pointy bit hanging down the back. Perhaps they stiffened it with a bit of starch to make it pointy in order to match their pointy shoes.

The black cat must have been a real mod con if you lived in a grotty hovel with mice in the wattle and daub. An added bonus if it caught a nice plump pigeon for the pot.

Last Saturday night in our neck of the woods was pretty quiet. There were no trick or treaters around and even the owls that call to each other across the valley seemed to have called it a day – or a night, depending how you look at it.

Nevertheless, pumpkins were for sale everywhere – not very British as it turns out. Apparently it was turnips that used to be scraped out to make a Jack O'Lantern. Pumpkins are very American.

Old women who lived alone were number one on the "Witches R Us" list. Roasted old ladies were quite a favourite with the self-righteous who saw old age and ugliness as something only hot fire could cure, rather than a nip, a tuck and a bit of Botox.

Talking to the cat, talking to yourself, forgetting where you've put things and finding them in the most amazing places – all once symptoms of witchery. Now that would take care of 25 per cent of the over 50s!

Lithesome maidens were not entirely immune, however, from being accused of nefarious deeds, though this may have had something to do with the fact that the accusers made a big meal out of searching for the devil's mark on their naked bodies. The lengths some blokes will go to!

Will anyone explain to me why wizards are so often portrayed as zany old men with long white beards? Just like their female counterparts, they've got a pointy hat and go around talking to themselves though go the extra mile and pull frogs out of their pockets and rainbows out of thin air thanks to their magic wand.