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...

I wonder if they aren't needed as much because health and safety means many of these things aren't an open threat to children anymore? Either locked away, properly stored, made more safe etc? I cant imagine happening across a grain slurry, for example!

I remember lots of those, the sparkler one in particular.

Wasn't there another PIF that was about not crossing the road in between parked cars? I always think of that when doing the same, must be 32 years ago now that I watched it.

I agree with pp that said back then the responsibility firmly laid with us children not to play dangerously - not with adults to make places safe. Yes the PIF were brutal but I bet they worked. I sometimes think we are so soft with our children nowadays that the real message gets lost along the way.

:( for those who were seriously affected by the PIF though

Eeyo - this one? Just over 13 minutes in :)

I couldn't watch the railway one. We were shown it at school and I closed my eyes and put my hands over my ears (and probably rocked back and forth) when the train approached.

Shortly afterwards we were on holiday at the coast, we had to cross the railway to get to the beach. Even though it was a straight track and you could see for miles in either direction, I was terrified that a train would come and squish us if we so much as touched the track. I was screaming, sobbing and would not cross the track. My poor parents!

I have only recently developed a healthily and respectful relationship with fireworks having been terrified of them for 30 years!

Children are shown safety videos these days, my DD was recently shown a "stay safe online" one which I actually saw and it was quite scary. She is now terrified of anything that pops up on her kindle.

Does anyone remember the nuclear war one where a woman is pregnant and gives birth in outdoor in the radiation filled atmosphere, chews through the umbilical cord, eats raw sheep to survive. Her child grows up, and gets pregnant herself. The closing scene is the grown up child giving birth and the horror on her face and she sees her, presumably grossly deformed, baby.

Oh Jesus aftertherains, that's it. Fucking hell.

He obviously didn't disconnect the call, but the shadow and the phone is all how I remembered it.

Titchy... that was Threads

Well done Maurice - that was it. We also had the save yourself from radiation by hiding under the dining table or a door. And we read a book in English about a lone survivor in a Welsh valley who one day spots a man coming over the horizon in a radiation suit. Weird times....

We watched Threads in senior school I was 14/15, it traumatised me for many years and there's no way I could sit through it again.

titchy - Z for Zachariah - also a film, iirc.

At my junior school, we had a xmas party each year, the highlight of which was watching cartoons on a projector. However, every single year, the cartoons were preceded by public safety films - which were, without fail, utterly terrifying. I remember one called "Motorway Madness" (I'm still scred of driving on motorways some 30+ years later!) and another one about a boy who ends up in borstal. The closing shot of that one has blood trickling down the cell door. WHY did they show these films to us, aged 8 or so?!

this was probably only an Ireland / northern Ireland one but there was one about the circle of violence that is the IRA that used the cats in the cradle as the song - I cannot hear that song without thinking of the troubles

I remember that one, I only saw it once on something like Chris Tarrant doing a review of TV.

Fucking THREADS!
To this day I remember this it dread! my DM thought it was a good idea to let my 8/9 year old self watch it. Not her best idea!
On a lighter note, I remember one about not putting rugs down on highly polished floors. Something along the lines of "might as well have put a man trap there". IIRC the person in the ad had just left hospital...

Holy shit I wish I hadnt opened this thread (feeling sick emoticon)!

We moved around a lot when I was a child and although until now I couldnt remember any, I now have a whole load of memories. I can even remember where I lived for each one.

I have seen every one that has been mentioned no wonder I feel anxious about my kids.

We dont fly kites, we cross the road to avoid the substation, go the long way over the railway through the bridge, stay away from the farm 5mins away. I thought I was nuts, now I understand why!

Can I resupress these memories?

I think we may have found the answer to why we're the generation who mollycoddle and helicopter our kids

What on earth was the point of terrifying children about the possibility of a nuclear holocaust??

I understand the point of films saying 'Stay away from railway lines' and 'Don't play on building sites', but what is a 9-year-old going to be able to do in the event of nuclear war? Hide under the stairs is about the extent of it, and even then we're all toast.

Making kids read books and watch films about how their world could be randomly destroyed by remote adults at any point just seems a bit cruel

I grew up in the 80s so missed the worst of it, but I remember my mum saying that they had a plan in case of nuclear holocaust (hide in the pantry). Also there were still little leftovers of the nuclear fear, like a book we had to read in German class about a massive nuclear leak where everyone's hair fell out, kids got separated from parents and loads of the characters died of radiation poisoning. It was great.

I totally agree Adam. No idea what the aim was tbh. I think some of it was actually snobbery - that 'some kids' (probably working class ones) were too thick to understand dangers/world events unless they had it rammed home with super scary videos. Perhaps because their parents were supposed not to care or be good enough parents.

Alternatively it was a kind of psychological corporal punishment.

I'm truly amazed that any school scheduled 'Threads' in the classroom. What on earth! My school got a sixth form French Culture group to watch Jeremy Irons taking a lady from behind in 'Swann in Love'. Very educational for many of us, including the Christian Union sector who all walked out.

Thank you for posting the Cats in the Cradle video, I think it's brilliant, watched it at Uni.

I don't think anything beats the Northern Ireland speeding/road awareness films, they are quite awful in their realism.

Threads always crops up on nostalgia threads. There's a whole generation of us completely scarred

The finishing line scared me. We had to watch it in assembly. A child of 70s education i was regularily subjected to traumatic films at school.. Wouldnt do it these days im sure!