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...

Wasn't it a charity?
Horrible. With the wolf dog thing.

Yes, I am a Crisis by the Red Cross.

I think they meant well, but I don't know... I don't think it was a good ad.

Ginny, that was/is a Red Cross ad. (no idea whether it's still on, haven't seen it for a while)

When I was in primary school there was a contest to design a farm safety poster. My class wasn't involved because we were too young but the corridors were lined with the 'best' efforts, suffice to say red and brown pens/paints had got the most use. Apaches was pretty easy in comparison. Having said that, horrible though it was to see these things, we were in an agricultural area and it was important to know about farm safety. There were children in the school who'd lost brothers or sisters in farm accidents and nobody wanted it to happen again.

Are they effective? Is there any evidence that it is these films that have reduced accident rates?

Oh we had crucial crew too - rural community.

That film was awful. It was like 1000 ways to die but with children, I still think about it now.

Mean. I don't know about evidence but they scared me enough for me to stay on the straight and narrow. Remember, those wires are live.

"Are they effective?"

Well, I think it's four people just on this thread who have specifically mentioned the slurry drowning - seen in a film nearly 40 years ago.

I don't know about the others, but I still wouldn't go near a slurry pit.

'The Finishing Line' gave me nightmares for years. A truely horrible film that seemed to go on forever .

Is this connected with the Channel 4 70s programme that has a whole sequence of scary info films? I've just been watching it on catchup. Even though I was around for the whole 70s I don't remember most of the ones shown, perhaps I've suppressed the memory. Mainly the Charlie ones have stuck in my mind, and the comparatively unscary ones done by that huge guy (Dave?) who was wearing a Superman costume and told kids to remember the Green Cross Code.

Me and DH were talking about these the other day. They really did stay with you. The football boots and the slurry pit in particular. He was saying how it's odd they don't make primary school kids watch information films anymore. I think they might still do road safety ones but not the more terrifying 'beware of farms' type.

I remember one for fostering, where a mum and toddler are walking down some steep stone steps. The mum trips and tumbles from top to bottom, oranges spill down the steps. At the end she's just a crumpled heap while her child sobs. I was about 5 at the time and worried sick it would happen to my mum. I still get the fear walking down stone steps now.

Archfarchnad - funnily enough, I haven't seen the n70s thing yet, so wasn't aware of the PIFs in it!!

queenmools - there was a brief clip of that on something a while back, although it just showed the fall as part of a montage.

Queenmolls. I remember that ending like it was yesterday. But not what the PIF was all about. You've stirred up a disturbing scene - good little actor, probably the same age as me - but never mind. Thank you !!

Why do we not need these anymore? Is it that people are just more aware in general if health and safety so use their common sense a bit more?

I remember a samaritans advert of a woman screaming repeatedly, she looks like she's trying to talk but every time she tries she just screams and as such goes misunderstood. Summed up the way I felt at the time when I saw it and had me in floods of tears.

I remember watching a substation video, and one for building sites - substation was based around a group of children all playing inside the thingmy and a doll frying or something. Can't remember really.

I think it was because there was a more lax approach to child safety generally. The emphasis was on children to stay out of trouble, not adults to guide them away from it. Apaches was before my time but I have seen it. Nowadays, the blame would lie solely with the adults but in the 70s/early 80s, the children were given the responsibility to not play on farms, or railway lines, or near pylons.

A friend told me about one film that freaked her out from the 70s, but nobody else can remember it and she wonders if she made it up. A girl was playing the recorder in the back seat of the car, obviously no seat belt, then the car braked suddenly and you just saw the bottom bit of the recorder down the girl's throat and her startled face. Obviously the message was that you shouldn't play dangerous wind instruments in a moving vehicle. I'm sure that's really improved safety statistics over the years.

Matches matches never touch they can hurt you very much

m.youtube.com/watch?v=s87ggNjWTVs

at "Never mix radial with cross -ply " Funny how they're all still in there.

Christ that 'finishing line' one is brutal! Dead people and blood all over the place!

They really didn't pull any punches, did they?

Oh gosh yes. The Stranger Danger one and Building Sites Bite in particular.

In fact I won a Building Sites Bite poster competition with a surprisingly cheerful entry

And why is it always kids' ankles being run over by trains? It happens in that one, but it definitely also happened in another film we were shown about not playing on railway lines, where the kid's shoes get stuck on a bit of the track and he can't get them off.

not read everything yet but

panzee
my mum put dettol into another bottle aged 18 months I drank it thinking it was orange squash. don't remember but have a tracheotomy scar and a fucked up scar tissued throat to prove it does happen!

my one is the girl with the fireworks/sparklers whose hands were v badly burnt.
they should bring but Charlie say fucking scary!!!

I'd forgotten so many of these.. They really were traumatic weren't they?

I've posted before on these threads about this, but no one ever seems to remember it..

It was a stranger danger one. A girl in some kind of secluded parish hall or community centre type place. All alone and realising she's in danger. There's an old fashioned dial telephone in the room, she goes over to it and attempts to dial 999, but as she's trying to the shadow of an adult man falls over her, then puts his finger over the cradle thing and disconnects the call.

Dear GOD it was terrifying.