What was the most random thing you were scared of as a child?

[ClassicStripe]

Me and DP are watching Mr McMahon on Netflix and it reminded me that when I was a child me and my sister were really scared of Hulk Hogan. We didn't have a clue about wrestling he was just on a poster at our cousin's house.

Watched Jaws still obsess about sharks!

Was drunk and living in California and went swimming in the sea at night, then I remembered Jaws! Quick exit out of the sea and sobered up quickly too.

Dave Hill from Slade terrified me! Still not keen tbh.
Like PP ..Hartley Hare. That was one freaky programme.
Any weird spooky wooden figure stop motion animation of which there seemed to be lots in my 1970’s childhood.

Bruce Forsyth

Electricity pylons and Grotbags the witch from TV 🤣

I stepped into some quicksand once on Bournemouth beach. Just a small patch, but it was an unpleasant feeling. There are culverts that drain water from the cliffs onto the sand - but this one was seeping underneath the sand surface causing it to be fluid even though it looked exactly like the rest.

Motorbike man. A repetitive dream I had where someone on a motorbike was out to get me. I'd always wake up at the point he was about to get me.

I’m 43 and still terrified of this

An advert, think it was for Trebor Softmints, with Mr Soft. Think it was mainly the music that I didn’t like but the whole thing had a very sinister feel

Prawns

My brother told me the boiler cupboard contained a giant spider and he used to torment me saying he was going to open the cupboard and let the Boiler out

… at night, any cupboard doors or drawers slightly ajar; wouldn’t have been able to sleep.

Feet dangling over the side of the bed too; intolerable.

Still to this day, need to avoid thinking about it when falling asleep (tucking feet under a blanket usually does the trick though.)

gives me the Heebie-jeebies!

I was scared of everything as a child:
Spiders
Being abducted ("by gypsies"*)
The hoover
Wasps
The dustbin lorry
Teachers at school
Quicksand
Bees
Swimming
Electricity pylons
Train power lines
The old lady down the road with clicky teeth
Rivers
Falling down a mine
Dogs
Falling off a roof
Doctor who

*Thanks to Enid Blyton for casual racism

Just some that spring to mind. My primary school was quite strict,and we watched a number of those "safety " films in the 70s about not swimming in rivers, etc

Tap water.
I'd heard about "fresh water" fish and jumped to the conclusion they'd swim out of the tap. My 6 year old brain imagined something like a sardine flapping and flicking and flailing out of the tap just as I'd bent my head under it to rinse the toothpaste out of my mouth.

Clowns are still a current fear for me 😳

Chalky the tv show.

Indian restaurants. The music, the wallpaper, the dim lighting was terrifying to me as a young child 😭

Ice cream van. I loved ice cream, but was terrified of the van and the music it played. I used to hide in the pantry.

Worsel Gummige. Creepy bustard. Still can't look/watch him.

Flies. I used to come in from the garden crying and ask my mum to make them leave.

Guy Fawkes. I think a friend told me scary stories about vampires around the time we learned about bonfire night. I also heard of Jack the Ripper around the same time and in my head they all became one and the same.

There was also a really odd ticking noise in my bedroom at night. I was convinced it was someone taking a photo of me in bed. Every second. I was far older than I care to admit when I realised it was my clock!

I was also scared of bugs in general, spiders, heights, the dark, the graveyard. Basically everything.

There were two.
Cybermen and I was convinced that at night John The Baptist and Anne Boleyn sat either side of my bed with their severed heads in their laps; I was terrified to open my eyes and see them.

My mum’s tights used to give me the heebeegeebies when they were on the radiator to dry.

Leprosy. I went to Catholic school and it features in alot of biblical stories 🤷‍♀️

That's mine ffs 😳

Spontaneous combustion. (Like pp, stupid book on the unexplained).

The Bermuda Triangle (as above)

Caterpillars

Going to High School, was petrified it would be like Grange Hill

Jeremy Bloody Beadle playing a prank on me

Jimmy Saville (always gave me the creeps).

Circa 1992, the flesh eating bug was in the news. I was paranoid at every single twinge or itch. I was always in the loos at school checking myself.

Cyril Sneer, Evil Edna, Grotbags and the witch from the bbc computer game Granny’s Garden.
oh and Emu.

I was scared of a lot.

Eucalyptus the witch in Paulus The Wood Gnome
And street cleaners. The sound 😳

The Beverly Hillbillies where the oil bubbles up from the ground (“black gold, texas tea…”)