How many times,as a child, did you face a threatening situation from a stranger?

[Larkslane]

Reading the thread about the unsolved cases, particularly the ones concerning children has sparked a few memories for me.
I wondered is it common to have avoided being the victim of a crime in childhood?
I believe I did on three separate occasions.
The first time a friend and I were walking home from the shops in day light along a quiet road, without houses. A man stopped his car and opened the passenger door as though he was going to ask us a question. My friend leaned in to talk to him and he made a grab for her. I pulled her away and we ran. He followed us until we reached some houses and he accelerated away.
My friend and I were aged 7, in the early 1970s.

In the mid 1970s I was at the public swimming pool with my teenage cousin. She was talking to a friend and I as a more serious swimmer, was doing lengths. A man jumped on top of me and held me under the water whilst trying to grope me. I struggled, and then shouted blue murder. A female life guard pulled me out. When she realised what had happened she blew her whistle and ordered him out. I was probably aged about 8/9. We carried on swimming amazingly! When we left the pool we saw him waiting outside. Fortunately my mum was waiting to give us a lift.

In the late 1970s a man who told me he was the land owner tried to escort me off down a country lane as he said I was trespassing. I was not, I had been picking blackberries on a public lane. Luckily My dad drove by, and pulled up, he had been out looking for me. I should have been waiting for him at the farm but I was greedy for blackberries! I had probably walked 20 minutes away from the farm down country lanes. We kept our horse there so I knew the area well.

I’m wondering did most little girls encounter these type of situations when children had more freedom years ago, or was I particularly unlucky?

I definitely did in the early 2000's, at the time it was just weird encounters but looking back much more sinister in nature.
I remember playing on the local fields with a friend about 9yrs old. 2 men approached and asked her if she knew what a blowjob was, we didn't but we knew it was something grown up.
A local man walking his dog saw the exchange and told them to bugger off and sent us home.

Had multiple flashers walking to/from school. We all cackled and found it a bit of a weird thing but nothing more than that.

Once had a man approach us whilst out playing identify himself as a police officer who needed help finding the local 'den' where the kids played in the woods.
Something felt so off about the whole thing, a policeman asking little girls to take him into the woods. The group started heading towards the field, I think excited about the drama of it, but I dropped back to head home.
A neighbour & parent of my friend was out watering the garden and I told him about the policeman, he took off like a rocket.

Nothing like this happened to me as a child, growing up in rural Wales in the seventies.

There are very few women who have not been sexually harassed/assaulted. Very often as children. The comedian Katherine Ryan has recently spoken about the experiences her teenage daughter has had over the summer. It happens all the time.

When I was about 4 I went by a parked car and the driver asked me to pick up some coins he'd 'dropped' - when I did and leaned into his car to give him the money he had his cock out!

Another time an old man was trying to get me to play hide and seek with him

Both incidents before I turned 5 and in the early 80s.

Never anything like you mention from strangers to my recollection. I’ve had the odd rude or disgusting comment from strangers though. On the whole, men and boys I’ve known have either made me feel uncomfortable or sexually harassed me in more serious ways.

Nothing like you describe, more your common or garden sexual assault at bus stops kinda thing.

Lived in a block of flats in the 70s. A neighbour tried to pick me up and take me into his flat I screamed the place down. My mum or dad came out and he said he was only joking I'd been about 7 or 8.

I only really remember one time, I was around 8 or 9, walking home with my little brother and there was a tyre swing on the way that anyone could play on, it just hung from a tree, so we started swinging away. The man in the nearest house was doing his gardening and started chatting to us, asking if we wanted to come in for a drink since it was so hot. I remember feeling unsure because he wasn't exactly a stranger to my mind, my parents knew him (not well, just as a neighbour) and I'd talked to him before. But I said no, we needed to get back home.. my brother was raging with me, wanting a 7up or whatever but off we went. Anyway it came out years later that he was a paedophile that had assaulted multiple kids. I'm sure it was no coincidence there was a tyre swing outside his house either.
I do remember someone trying to snatch two girls from outside our school gates one time, but the girls got away.. we were all warned to watch out for a white van but I never saw it so not exactly a close call.
Multiple close shaves as a teenager and an adult but that's all I remember from my childhood! Born in the 90s

I've had quite a few like you. It was rife in our town.

1. 1970s age 9 cycling, slow chased by a man in a car who only drove off when my grandads wife came by in her car and scared him off.

2. 1980s age 12, flashed near my school by a man while with school friends.

3. numerous sexual assaults age 11 and 12, sexually assaulted by an adult man, friend of older sister at a party and by another friend of older sister at a concert. Then again by a roadie at a concert. (All of these I believed to be consensual acts at the time but they were 18, 19 and 20.

4. 1980s age 14, two men tried to drag my friend and I into a car but we got away.

5. also age 14 groomed by much older adult man & raped by his adult friends.

6. age 15 had what I believed then to be consensual sex with a 25 year old.

It's a wonder we survived the 70s & 80s!

I grew up in the 90s, never experienced anything dodgy at all. I was out all over the place - lived rurally - on my bike, on foot, etc and never felt at risk or threatened.

Been flashed at walking to school, had some guy phone our house about an ad, I answered, when he realized I was a preteen girl proceeded to say the vilest sexual stuff to me until I slammed the phone down. After that he kept phoning, and he’d asked for my name which I’d naively told him so he would ask to speak to me and I was too ashamed to tell my parents why I didn’t want to speak to him (though thinking back alarm bells should really have rung for them). Horrible!

When I was no more than 9 and on the way home in my school uniform, an old bloke - very RP accent - stopped me and asked me at length where he could buy a cane, to cane his daughter, because she was very naughty. 😱

I thought it very weird, but at that age had no idea that it meant he was a disgusting old perve. IIRC I directed him to a shop that sold garden-ish things!

Two that stand out to me.

i was around 7 or 8, cycling on my own. A man in a car pulled up and asked if i knew where X street was. There was nowhere nearby that could be called anything like it, and he just felt off to me. I cycled home (and away from the road on an open footpath) as quickly as I could.

The other was a creep who called our house, and when he realised a child had answered, asked disgusting questions, like if I had pubic hair yet. I think I was about 10 then.

Never, they all sound horrific:(

Not as bad as some of the others

This was N Ireland, when 8/9 years old a man befriended my friend and I. He would record our voices in the swimming pool cafe and buy us chips. Mum told us to stay away from him - maybe he was innocent! I also was followed two miles home by a man at the pool, I was very scared in the end and ran the last bit.

18 at uni on a wet winter night I had a group of 5/6 lads jump on me. One pulled on my umbrella while the others grabbed different parts of my body. Managed to get away and run back to halls.

Two from memory, one involving a teacher and one a man when I was on holiday. I was 9 and 12.

Not a stranger as such but in the early 2000s I was about 8/9 I was walking home from school with a friend and someone who was a couple of years above us pushed me up against a wall and said he was going to rape me. My friend was fast as ran off to get help, the police came and I had to give an interview then it was viewed of just kids been kids so nothing happened.

My mums family all lived in mainland Europe and I used to spend summers with them. One time when I was around 4, my aunt and uncle were bringing me back home and we had to get a train from London. They were walking up the stairs and I was trailing a bit behind. A man coming down the stairs picked me up and started walking off with me. He was holding me so I was facing my quickly disappearing aunt and uncle! To this day I still remember trying to scream and no sound coming out.

Luckily, my uncle turned round in the nick of time. Sprinted after us and grabbed me from the man. What does still make me a bit angry is that they didn't call the police. Apparently they were hoping I'd forget and my mum and dad wouldn't find out! In their defence they were young, early 20's, but still. Apparently the guy said he thought I was cute and just wanted to pick me up! That was the closest I came to something truly horrific happening.

That's terrifying. I was once coming up out of a tube station when I saw a man trying to coax a toddler down the stairs into the tube. There were some women chatting at the top of the stairs and I assumed the toddler was with them. The man seemed shifty. I stopped and asked the toddler where mummy was. She seemed confused and didn't answer. I asked her if she knew the man. She still didn't answer. I felt a bit uneasy as he could have been her step parent or carer but they clearly weren't related. I started coaxing her up the steps while he kept trying to coax her down. She sort of froze and then one of the women called to her to hurry up and the man legged it.

NC for this.

One time I recall me and a friend were picking blackberries when a guy came up with a camera. Said he'd like to take some photos of us. (More of her as I was an unattractive child) and he did, us doing handstands and sitting with legs apart.

I now realise how this could have potentially turned bad. This was about 1970, we were 10. Did we have a lucky escape? Who knows.