Things which scared you as a kid and have stayed with you...

[GinJeanie]

I’m talking about things which scared the bejeezus out of you at the time and you would still hate to encounter as an adult- no doubt irrationally. I have two examples and suspect if I revisited them, they wouldn’t be as bad as I remember. I won’t though - still too scared!
The first is a book called A Candle in Her Room. It’s about some sisters who have an vile, evil wooden doll in their house and horrible things keep happening to them. It was a children’s book but I found it terrifying. I’m a middle-aged woman but NOTHING would make me read it again. The thought makes me want to vomit.
The second is a public safety film called Apaches which was shown in the 1970s. It involved a group of children dying one by one on a farm (all had horrible accidents)... I know I will never watch that film again even though it’s readily available on YouTube. My terror is too great.
Anyone else?

Low flying planes. I was on Mablethorpe beach when I was small, and two RAF jets flew over so low they caused a massive tidal wave. It scared the absolute shut out of me and, for years, I screamed blue murder every time a plane went over. A bit of a pain when you live near an airport! I still hate them flying low and, a couple of years back, got stuck in traffic right next to an air show which is my worst nightmare. I also hate the bit of the M25 near Legoland where the planes come over low - I have to try and block them out when I’m driving as they make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

What was the title of the public information film where the single Mum didn’t come back?
I also remember one advertising a castle - it wasn’t meant to be scary but I got spooked by the battle noises, echoing round the ruins. Just played “ Lonely Water” & it’s still scary! The voice of Donald Pleasance was so menacing......

Omg I just watched that 999 episode with thte little girl trapped between the walls!

I laughed at the reconstruction tho when the kids asked through the letterbox if they could play in the back garden.."I'm not having you running in and out all day!" Those were the days!

The uncle too later on saying "god it was a brand new extension and they knocked it down"

Mammyloveswine where did you watch it? I'm half tempted to watch it again. I'd obviously remembered some details wrong but I was probably 9ish at the time.

smorgasbord of fear right here!

maflingo.com/1970s-public-information-films/

The Enfield poltergeist is not a true story, I promise you. Like I said, I lived very near the house, walked past it most days. A lot of it was blatantly just lies to whip up a frenzy, even from the investigators. The one we discovered just the other day for instance. It was always said locally that Bill (the spirit) was buried in St James which is next to the park opposite the house. You walk through it on the way so you always look at the grave stones. In the book by investigator Guy Playfair it specifically says “The girls would often visit Bills grave in the local churchyard as they were walking home.”

Well we went to the park last week and decided to try and find it.

It’s not there.

It’s in a grave yard on the other side of Enfield, lavender hill. That’s not local to an 11 year old girl. I’m telling you now there’s no way those girls would have gone all the way up to lavender hill unless they had bikes or bus fare, which they didn’t have, they were on their arses poor. Even then it’s 2 buses and a trek up gordon hill. There’s no way kids could even find it on their own, it’s tucked away in the green belt, bordering Cuffley.

That’s just one example of the little fibs to make it all more believable. Even to us as kids who had older uncles and aunts etc saying it was true. Scary when you’re 11 but as an adult you just wonder what the poor kids were really facing that made them act that way

I seem to remember Janet and her sister admitting to making at least some of the 'poltergeist' phenomena up.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=HeUX6LABCEA

This. I remember seeing at late at night as a teen and it's awful. I still can't watch it now

Ugh yes that's awful. I also hate the one where the son in the back of the car doesn't wear his seatbelt and he smacks into his mum. It's horrible: the blood in his face, his sister screaming