Even though Blender looks pretty complicated I decided to have a play and see what happened and I managed to make something basic. So far the object is a pillar, however I just added basic shapes together and grouped the various objects.
To start with I created the base with a number of cubes and altered the scale of each of the axis until I was happy with each shape. Once the base was made I added a cylinder and as with the cubes altered the axis until I was happy with the look of the object, after I duplicated the base and rotated it so it was upside down and placed it at the top of the cylinder.
After this quick play with Blender, I think I should stick with this program as it is free to use and it may actually be slightly more user friendly once I get to understand the program more.