What used to scare you as a child?

[Kasterborous]

I was terrified after I had seen the film Jaws at school, that a shark was going to come up the plug hole in the bath or up the toilet bowl. And for ages I had nightmares about that dead body that appeared from under the rocks in the water. My Mum was that they had shown the film at school I was about nine and easily scared. I also remember being terrified of the Triffids which was on telly when I was young. I remember my sister, who is three years younger than me chasing me round pretending to be a triffid! I still can't watch horror films.

I remember a girl being snatched from her caravan when I was about 8 (so mid 80's) and had nightmares for months after about my 3 year old brother being kidnapped from a toy shop and me not being able to save him!

The child catcher, monsters under the bed, the witches who flew around on 31 October!

I was really, really scared of tree roots. If we had to walk past a tree with exposed roots I was terrified, especially when they had done that thing where the tree was planted years and years ago and had eventually caused the pavement to crack upwards (this is probably, come to think of it, the root cause of my revulsion about cracks and holes!)

I was convinced for some reason that trees had the ability if they wanted to to grab your ankles with their roots and pull you under the ground. I can't remember when I grew out of it, but I'm fine now. Unless there's a massive tree with really big strong looking roots on display

My dad once tried to cure me of this phobia by taking me to a wood and hiding Thanks Dad.

Also public toilets and unfamiliar toilets in general - still feel jumpy in horrible grungy ones. Not sure what I am/was scared of. This I didn't grow out of until I started drinking alcohol and then I was a combination of drunk/needing to pee so much I didn't care

Hiddenhome I feel so sad for you. I am a foster mum and pray that the little girl I have long term never feels that when she grows up.

Walking up the stairs at night thinking they'd turn into gloop and Freddy Kruger would get me from the front door and looking out the kitchen window in the dark.

I'm still scared walking up the stairs at night. I have to do a double step at a time, a bit harder now with SPD!

The Incredible Hulk TV show, just when he would get angry and turn green, it really got me twitching and I'd hide behind my fingers , weird eh?

I would hate going upstairs, convinced something was going to get me.

There was a film in the early/mid 80s (I think) where a man in a coma made all sorts of disasters occur. That freaked me out for years.

About the same time we would watch Hammer House of Horrors, Nightmare on Elm St etc when we stayed at Nans, which was scary enough, but she had one of those Blue Lady pictures at the top of the landing which just looked so evil.

I hate horror films.

Cybermen, the sound of them marching still scares me. My DD1 is scared of squirrels, apparently one hid under her bed with a plan to steal Baba, her bear. She is now in her 20's and still pales at a photo of one.

I remember watching an episode of Bergerac with my mum with a mysterious red hooded figure and for nights I laid in my bed frozen in terror that it would get me.

Also terrified that if I went on a beach, a shark woukd get me.

But the most frightened I've ever been was when my mum told me she was going to die and I was going to live with my uncle and aunt. I still regularly dream I'm a child again with no control over my life and it's horrible.

The cyber men
The storm troopers
The child catcher
Pretty much all of Return to Oz but especially the wheelers

And two odd ones. This The Sandman urgh! Creepiest animation ever.

And a Czech(I think) version of Alice in Wonderland called Alice that used stop animation to create a dead stuffed rabbit leaking sawdust as the white rabbit. This was on on a Sunday afternoon for kids to watch. WTF?!

I think there must be something about puppets though because DS1 watched an episode of Midsomer Murders when he was about ten and couldn't sleep for two months. It had Punch and Judy in it

The Master
Aunt Sally
The Boy from Space. This last one particularly terrifying.

Quick sand. I always believed it was a huge problem for me...living in south London. I'm 22 now and have still never seen real life quick sand.

The dark

Yy to the monsters under your bed that will grab your feet if they dangle down.

A babysitter that would pretend she was a witch. I would walk around the room pressed up against the wall so I didn't have to go near her.

Escalators - specifically getting body parts caught.

I was always afraid someone would kidnap me. Maybe my parents overdid the whole stranger danger thing.

I think I spent most of my childhood petrified

Oh god and the girl from the moomins

Brown and a certain smell. Shudder..... When I was younger we were playing in the waste ground behind my house and the three little boys we were playing with told us they had found a body and shudder they dragged us to look. I saw brown clothes and this horrible smell.....It turned to be a shop makiain and the smell was flowers mixed with dog poo but scared me for years. Still hate brown.

Monsters or baddies under the bed.

The long, dark journey from my bed to my parents' when I'd had a nightmare and the fear that a ghost or something would grab me en route!

The fear of my cats dying. I used to have upsetting nightmares - first I'd get one about my sister dying, which was sad and scary. The one about my Mum dying, which was even more sad and scary. Then one about the cats dying, which upset me so much I'd wake up sobbing. My Mum was very patient about my priorities when I ran into her room crying!

Ghosts. There was a series, grown up TV, with paranormal detectives - think Joanna Lumley was in it? - where there was a ghost on an abandoned underground station who whistled 'Pack up your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag' that worried me for years.

Spontaneous human combustion - I'd seen that picture of someone where only their ankles and shoes were left in a magazine.

Cybermen and Daleks. I jumped six feet in the air when they brought cybermen back to new Who (dh laughed himself silly, the git - he'd spotted a glimpse of the feet earlier in the programme so was prepared).

Clowns. Think I'd seen an ad for a horror movie with an evil clown.

The Amityville horror - read about it in one of my mum's women's magazines. eek. eek. eekety eek - NOT suitable for children.

Yes, to quick sand! I think there was an episode of the A Team where they were sinking in it and it petrified me.

I am still afraid of a hand coming out from under the bed to grab my ankles. Really wish I hadn't watched that episode of Luther a few weeks ago!

I am also still scared of the dark. I woke my own son up in the middle if the night when he was about 14 crying hysterically and clutching the bottom of his quilt because the electric had gone off and my DH had gone out. When DH came home he had forgotten his keys and had to get a ladder and climb in through an upstairs window because I was literally too scared to walk down the stairs and open the door for him in the dark.

I could punch myself I'm so pathetic!

When I was about 7 I developed this terror of a toy I had been given: it was a sort of metal egg-shaped head attached to a retractable folded piece of wood which sprang out at you.

Looking back now I can't imagine why I was so scared: it was totally innocuous. But I was so scared I went to great lengths to prevent my mother going to the back reaches of the toy cupboard where it was stored.

Then later when I was about 11, at the height of he Cold War, I became (not so irrationally) terrified of a nuclear war breaking out -- to the point that I avoided watching news bulletins.

DR Who, especially the one in the London Underground (thousands of years ago... I am old) can't remember if it was cybermen or yeti's but it scared me enough to send me behind the sofa.

Oscar the trash monster from Sesame Street.
Nuclear war.
A friend of my parents' when he babysat and I was in bed (unfounded).
ET's hand appearing round the door frame like in the film.
Alligator coming out of the toilet, like the film Alligator.
Spiders, flies, dandelion clocks

Ditto edam.

Spontaneous human combustion but it's not real and as my mum says usually caused by someone smoking and falling asleep with lighted cigarette. Didn't like to tell her I read up on it as part of my plan of if you know about it you can't be scared. Didn't work even now....

Alice In Wonderland

It still does

I was scared of everything. I didn't sleep through the night properly until I was eleven - I used to lie awake until my mum was asleep, then turn my bedside light on and read until the sun came up.

I was a very well-read child!

Wow, armadillo, you poor thing. Very moving post. I bet no-one in the theatre company had any idea their work would have that effect.

And Elvis - your father was a hero, but I can see how watching him go into a burning house must have been terrifying.

I was about 4 or 5 when my dad let me watch jaws surprisingly not one of his worst parenting fails I remember being petrified at night of sharks coming out of the floor. So much so that I would go to the toilet at night without stepping on the floor.

And Ralph, that's heart-breaking. Did you end up living with your aunt and uncle?