To ask you which public information films (if any) freaked you out as a child?

[fishdishwish]

There's a few threads in this vein at the moment, but I though I'd start one dedicated to Charley Says... and its ilk.

Most public information films creeped me out as a child (I think it was the sense of something bad about to happen), to the point where I used to try and avoid times where they were often shown. However, one that haunted me for years was the 'Grain Drain' one (warning farmers of the dangers of children playing in grain silos), which shows a doll sinking into grain with the sound of a child crying over it. I saw just a snatch of it when I was 5 or so, and the image stalked my mind for 20-odd years...

Oh my ones where 'dark water' or something - about drowning, one about getting locked in fridges and the kite/pylon one

Growing up in the 80's the country was obsessed with nuclear war. We had to watch the film/cartoon and stage play of When The Wind Blows, information leaflets about building shelters with doors etc and shown films about the mushroom clouds.

Bloody terrified me it did. Such an over kill and made a generation paranoid about a nuclear bomb dropping on us at any time.

Say No To Strangers.

Really frightened me. I woke up screaming a couple of times. We were shown in in reception I think (in about 1987).

The railway safety one about not playing on train tracks. Robbie, a little boy, is bullied into playing on the tracks, gets his foot caught and can't escape from the oncoming train. The next scene is the police bringing his shoes home to his mum.

Our school was very close to a railway line that was very open, so we got this most terms. Still really bothers me!

A girl drank bleach from a lemonade bottle. It worked though, I've never put bleach into a lemonade bottle. :o (why would you pour bleach into another bottle anyway?)

Oh god, so many of them. But every single time I use an escalator I still think of the advert. And I can't even remember what was mangled and shredded now just that escalators shred your feet

Ditto, the water one with death/grim reaper.
Playing in fridges, freezers etc, when fly tipping was the rage.

It was a welly, SwedishEdith!

Oh oh the one on the farm and a group of super unlucky children, totally horrifying!

One drank something from a bottle and could be heard down the street screaming that night, one fell in a silo, one was mangled by some machinery

The one with a boy and his sister flying a kite near a pylon

The chip pan fire one gave me nightmares. And had such an effect that when I moved into my own house I used to hate cooking chips.

Oh my gosh - I am still terrified of sparklers since early childhood because of those adverts where the child had bandaged stumps instead of hands.

Yes the kite/pylon one - scared me shitless at the sight of pylons even though I had no intent nor cause to climb a pylon. Also the little girl drowning in a pond.

Of a similar era was Rolf Harris in a swimming pool surrounded by children saying that we should all learn to swim. That one wasn't so terrifying at the time.

I have never seen any of these before, that one up thread is freaky. Did they used to show them to kids?

Panzee: "A girl drank bleach from a lemonade bottle. It worked though, I've never put bleach into a lemonade bottle. grin (why would you pour bleach into another bottle anyway?)"

I know something this happened to years ago - the bar in question kept bleach in an old cider bottle and mistakenly sold it to a customer. The customer in question suffered terrible injuries.

The ones about fireworks really scared me. Can't remember which one but they terrified me

Growing up in the 80's the country was obsessed with nuclear war. We had to watch the film/cartoon and stage play of When The Wind Blows, information leaflets about building shelters with doors etc and shown films about the mushroom clouds.

^this. When The Wind Blows and those leaflets telling you what to do if someone died in your shelter.

It's called apaches - search for it on YouTube if you want nightmares tonight!!

Yes the pylon one freaked me out, the Rolf Harris one though does sound deeply disturbing (in retrospect).

More recent one that bothered me was the one where a man is in bed with a dead child in the room? Think it was an advert about speeding can't quite remember...

The Finishing Line on rail safety.

I must have seen it over 35 years ago, but it I have thought about it from time over the years and it always make me feel uneasy. I always thought I had mis-remembered, but I googled it recently and found it was really was very, very grim.

The AIDS one with the tombstone which fell down. I was convinced that sex was a death sentence...it was pretty terrifying.

'The Finishing Line' about railway safety. It's the one where they have school sports day on the tracks..I'm convinced it was shown on the BBC after Nationwide one night, but equally I could have seen it at school. For years I couldn't remember what it was called, then someone posted about it on another forum with a link to the youtube video, I haven't managed to watch the whole thing again yet, still makes me feel sick.

The pylon one and the substation one. I used to be scared to even walk under power lines. I still find it a bit hard not to scuttle past them!
Also a fireworks one with a milk bottle I think. Had a good firework phobia going on until several years of forcing myself to take dd to displays.

They are mostly on YouTube if you want to relive the horror. They worked, but I bet there'd be an outcry if they were shown today.