Gurning & Spontaneous Human Combustion

[Underminer]

Not connected to each other, but when I was little, circa mid 80s, gurning used to be a regular thing on telly, along with spontaneous human combustion being a thing we were all scared of happening to us.
Anyone else remember this? Maybe the gurning was on Record Breakers? I remember watching it on more that on occasion, my brother has a memory of old men with no teeth pulling faces through horse collars, and he thinks it was a toothpaste advert and that’s why we don’t really hear about it now? We don’t live in an area with contests.

What other random things do you remember that seem to have spontaneously combusted in history?

My copy is called Mysteries of the Unexplained by Readers Digest.

What about cryonics? In the 70s it seemed as though there were loads of people paying to be frozen after death in the hope they would be resurrected in the future and hopefully cured of whatever killed them or even have the aging process reversed. Wonder if they’re still frozen or whether someone decided to have a clear out?

This one? Proud to say my youngest was obsessed with this as well when she was about 9.

Just remembered also being scared of Willow the Wisp, not the cartoon (although Evil Edna frightened the life out us) but the phenomenon of a ghostly light seen over marshes at night. I was sure that if the quicksand or combustion didn’t get me, one of these would lure me in - even though I lived in the inner city with no chance of being out on my own at night!

It would be good to defrost a few to see what they make of the modern world.

That looks like how I remember "my" book looking. But then I've thought that a few times, possibly even bought that one already.
Does it have the Cottingley Fairies in please? They've been missing from every book I've bought.

It might’ve been this book. The cover looks more familiar than the Reader’s Digest one.

Not a weird mystery but the Flat Stanley book always made me worry if ever there was a picture over the bed if we stayed anywhere.

Yes, the Cottingley Fairies were in it. Although, they admitted they'd made it up at some point so maybe they were removed from later additions after that?

It was volcanoes I was terrified of.

Ah yes. I knew they were made up, but it didn't occur to me they may have been removed from later editions.
I might have to go in my mums attic and see if she still has all her old RD books.

Just checked and they confessed in 1983.

I used to enjoy traumatising myself with repeated readings of this book.

There was a telly programme about human combustion, I am sure. Not a shit channel five one but a proper one on the BBC back in the 80s.

There was quite a lot of woo around in general then including kids' programmes with people being murderously psychic and so on. Probably because we were all just waiting it out until we inevitably died in nuclear Armageddon. (I strongly believed this would happen and I know I wasn't the only one.)

I used to love those kinds of books too but what terrified me was the thought of catching on fire, the amount of times it was drummed into me that if I catch fire I need to stop, drop and roll I figured it'd probably happen to me at least once in my lifetime!

Lorna Doone- or the BBC adaptation of it was the reason for my fear of quicksand in the 70s.

Re: the Cottingley fairies. There is a great Cautionary Tales podcast episode about them. Arthur Conan Doyle was a huge believer in the photos.

Do you mean 'Spring Heeled Jack'?

Jumping Jack Flash is a song by the Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger isn't everyone's cup of tea, but he's not that scary.

I remember looking at everybody & thinking “ That person could be a Satanist but they are apparently leading a completely normal life”. The idea of teachers, doctors, policemen etc actually being devil worshippers terrified me. And oh my goodness that kids’ programme “ Children of the Stones” was absolutely petrifying! Does anyone remember that?
Another vote for those public information films. I still have nightmares about The Grim Reaper - “ I’ll be back ack ack ……”

DH & i both still.remember the film about a boy who lost his legs playing on.train tracks.

I think there was.a story line in an.episode.of casualty with one/some children getting stuck in a fridge which I still think of when I see one abandoned. Definitely shouldn't have watched casualty, so many episodes gave me nightmares

The rabies ads were frightening too. And the AIDS ones.

The fear of choking on a fish bone was so strong after doing my guide first aid badge, that I didn’t eat fish until my 20s.

My mum got stuck in quicksand recently 😲 I couldn’t help but laugh when she told me as like you it seemed so… old fashioned I guess haha. But she was VERY scared!

Currents. I remember my parents taking us for a day trip to Hunstanton and seeing posters warning of currents absolutely everywhere. I was terrified of swimming in the sea for years.

Yes! What was that about!

Thanks to talks at school and scary adverts, I was terrified of being struck into pieces by an express train while trespassing on the railway. The fact that I had never once in my life trespassed on a railway, nor ever intended to, somehow did nothing to diminish the terror.

I was terrified of SHC. The picture of the woman in front of the fire. Well, not a whole woman, just her leg 😱.
Quick sand and the Bermuda triangle featured heavily as well. I remember being REALLY scared if a black cloud came across the sky. I genuinely thought a ship would appear from it and take me to the Bermuda triangle!
I had a book with 'ghost' pictures in. There was one with a floaty ghost on the stairs of some stately home. Jeez, it absolutely terrified me. I had to psyche myself up to look at it and read the caption (at least once a week from what I remembered!). Then once I'd read it and seen the picture, I had to hide the book from myself incase the ghost came out of it! .

Quicksand here, too. Why were we all so terrified of it?

The fridge, thing, as I recall, was a genuine danger. Their closure mechanism was different in those days, so if you crawled insie a discarded fridge and the door shut you would be trapped and suffocated.
Children played out and about without adults more in those days, so might often have come across fltipped fridges. I think there were actual cases of children dying? I'm starting to doubt myself now. Perhaps I am just remembering scare stories.

I also remember being sternly warned about:
Peanuts - not allergic reactions but the Near Inevitability of Choking to Death if you ate one carelessly
Fish bobes - ditto.
Swimming less than half an hour after eating - you would get cramp and drown

I thought this might be another PS/This Morning thread with a witty title until I opened it!

There's a character in Bleak House who spontaneously combusts. Jonny Vegas played him in the BBC adaptation.