What strange obsessions did you have as a child?

[ThePineappleSeahorse]

I saw this on Reddit earlier and I thought that I’d ask Mumsnetters about their childhood obsessions.

I’m autistic so I had many obsessions, too many to count but to name a few, I was obsessed with Spring-Heeled Jack after reading Terry Deary’s True Monster Stories and I was fascinated with the Kray twins after watching the 1990 movie when I was much too young 10 or 11) at a friend’s home. And I was also weirdly obsessed with Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suites and Dick Turpin.

What were your odd childhood interests?

Tia

I was obsessed with Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot when I was about 10 or 11. I knew all the names of the people involved and all the torture methods that were used.

Drugs! I read all the library books about them. I couldn’t wrap my head around the concept of your authentic moods being changed by taking a substance.

Bizzarley playing at being a doctors receptionist for hours in my room.
I do not know why as they get loads of agro

I grew up in the Devon countryside. When we were about 8 or 9, my best friend and I had a Nature Club. We'd roam the local fields and woods with our notebooks and copies of various Observers books, noting all flowers, plants, birds etc. If we found a nest we were ecstatic, and used to watch it daily from a distance, making our notes.

All the book research had a lasting effect as I know the names of lots of UK wildflowers and birds. Nowadays I do exactly the same thing with everything I see when I'm diving. Once a nature geek, always a nature geek 🙂

I LOVE this thread!! All this fantastic strangeness that I completely relate to.

my friend and I would make up dances in my bedroom to the only music I had at the time, inherited 45 records - Manfred Mann mostly! Obsessed with getting timings right.

all sorts of other obsessions. I had a numerous mystery solving clubs with secret codes and passwords and languages.

Jet packs. My best mate and I wanted to save up our money to buy a jetpack, never mind that they were only owned by NASA and could only make you 'fly' a few metres at huge expense in a specialist suit!

Spontaneous combustion - I used to kind of worry about that one

Solving 'mysteries' - my mate and I would walk up and down looking for 'clues' and then apparently this would suggest a mystery like 'What could all these cigarette ends mean, it must be a clue?!' (they meant it was the 80s and lots of people smoked)

I was obsessed with the SS Great Britain after seeing her on a school trip in primary school. I would draw pictures of her on placards and march about in our neighbourhood with them like some weird protest 😂

Vampires. I read everything I could about them, watched all the films I could find and even researched “real” vampires and how I might find them! My answer to what I wanted to be when I grew up was always a vampire until I was about 10. Still love vampire stuff now.

I absolutely love this.

I know I was embarrassingly obsessed by Enid Blyton. Oh the shame.

Twins separated at birth.

Drawing mermaids.

The Flambards TV series and books. I had that one bad - I would take the books to school in my bag every day for months. I even got plastic covers for them like school library books 🤦🏻‍♀️

I know there’s more but I’m trying to stem the flow.

Memorising number plates - late diagnosed ND unsurprisingly

I cut out clothing labels and stuck them into an exercise book. Drove my Mum mad, because she couldn’t check washing instructions, and many clothes back then were not colour-fast.

I used to 'collect' holiday brochures from the travel agency. I would often 'price up' holidays for fake people and write out fake itineraries for people to follow! 😂 I remember being exceptionally proud of a multi-stay Asia trip 😂

I suppose I will out myself as a bloke and say as a kid I was unhealthily obsessed with Dinky's pink Lady Penelope Car, and Corgi's James Bond Aston Martin DB5. Largely because, just as I got interested in getting them, the makers discontinued them, so it was like they both became the holy grail. It wasn't like today where you could just pick 'em up on eBay!

I loved the way they looked, and the ingenious hidden gadgets. It seemed to flick a switch in my brain. It was like having a crush on an object.

The only other comparable toy might be Corgi's Batmobile, that was great and every kid in the playground seemed to own one - but it was always available.

I imagined stumbling across some forgotten Bagpuss-type shop, maybe on a family holiday in a seaside town, where they might sell one...

Rather like the girl I was nuts over at college many years later, there was the sense that once you got what you wanted, it/she would probably cease to be of interest.

After two years of asking, the toy shop phoned to delightedly inform my mother that they did indeed have the James Bond car in stock. However, it turned out to not be the Aston Martin from Goldfinger/Thunderball but the white Lotus Esprit from the new film, The Spy Who Loved Me. Disappointment.
Later on, within a year or so, Corgi did reissue the grey Aston Martin DB5 - only without the tyre slasher or revolving number plate gadgets.
Even now, you can't pick up a decent condition Lady Penelope Car on eBay for anything less than £300 or so, they are mostly chipped and battered, as mine would have been if I'd ever got my hands on them.
Sorry, I can't really sleep tonight, hence all this.

Spontaneous combustion.
I was given a small hardback book about unexplained events.
The one that really grabbed my attention to a ridiculous degree was Spontaneous human combustion.
I read anything I could find. (Un)Fortunately there are few cases and nothing proven. When I was alone, I'd make sure that there was no combustables around me. This made sitting on a foam filled sofa tricky. Ditto bed.

Reading books about horses and ponies and going to the local stables. I was obsessed with ponies. I still love them.

Tropical fish. I used to read books on them, draw pictures, memories details about their care and watch their tank in case I discovered any new behaviours. Pokémon, and I was obsessed with the idea of growing things in a secret garden (my parents would never give any of their garden over the me to grow things sadly).

I decided to copy out the Bible and stick the pages on my bedroom wall. I managed about 3 pages of Genesis 🤣

Ancient Egypt. Read all I could find . Drew endless pictures of Nefertiti. Had a theme tune in my head as I glided around pretending to be her.
Enid Blyton books , longing to be part of a gang that was allowed to go off on adventures.