Weird things that scared you as a child...

[user1491572121]

My DD is 12 and I was just absentmindedly singing "Frere Jacques" and she said "Oh that song! It used to give me nightmares!"

And I said why? I used to sing it to you all the time!

And she said YES! And it made me think of people drowning...

Apparently she used to hear it and envision a man in bed and then water would rush in and drown him!

What weird fears/thoughts did you or yours have?

Fushias, thought they were evil.

An episode of Starsky and Hutch

It was about Voodoo, and it scared the life out of Little Zukie

I couldn't sleep for weeks after that, I was about 9 or 10 maybe

Dangermouse

Toilets with high up cisterns - convinced they would fall on me or leak water on me. I used to have to look up at it constantly whilst weeing still do

Those security metal fences with gaps! when I was younger, the wind used to rattle them. There's a street on an industrial estate near me and I can never go down it anymore!

The song ta ra a boom de ay.... saw a clip of casualty and a woman was singing it and started coughing up blood. I assumed that happened if you sang naughty songs

I was also scared of the door knob and the flowers on my curtains. They looked like faces and combined with my dads snoring I thought they were coming to eat my face

Lunch time news music..I remember hiding under the table lol... Or crime stoppers one of the two.

Swimming pools that were deserted- I used to think that they kept sharks in the deepend and would let them out to swim around before people went in. Still crosses my mind now....

Open plan stairs- that a hand would grab my ankles- still fear it now so glad I moved.....

I used to think when you flushed the loo, the contents went into the cistern. It didn't scare me, but I wondered how my dad could be so blase about going in to fiddle around with the ballcock if it wasn't flushing properly.

The opening credits to the TV programmes Maelstrom and The Mad Death (the one about rabies). Terrifying.

YY to the Hobyahs! I read it in reception and was so scared. Also Clever Hans.

When was four I saw Kate Bush performing Wuthering Heights on tv. I was so scared I hid behind the sofa, and never quite got over my terror of either the song or singer since...

Local legend that a monkey with a travelling fair scaled the church steeple because it was scared of all the people laughing at it, and wouldn't come down so froze at the top. Always scared that the gargoyles on the church were real dead animals!

I was told that witches came out at midnight so was very scared if I had woken for the toilet around then, I grew up in an area known for its witchiness.

Also the green giant in sweetcorn adverts ?!? Thought he was horrid and would trample me

Clowns, triffids, electricity pylons, the dark,

fucking Watership Down

A friend once told me that snakes and spiders could climb up a toilet and bite you on the bum. I spent all of my poos sat awkwardly twisted so I could see into the bowl. For many years - more than I care to admit.

Oh, and that my parents were secret terrorists and/or drug addicts (to be fair, my dad did have a snuff habit so he was always snorting stuff up his nose).

Noonoo the vacuum cleaner from the Teletubbies. Used to have me screaming and hiding for cover behind the sofa.

I used to be scared of the "Trapdoor" theme tune and go out of the room and watch it through a crack in the door.
Also my light switch was at the opposite end of the bedroom to my bed. I had to switch it off and run and jump into my bed. My mirror was directly opposite the light switch so the last thing I'd see was my own frightened reflection before I switched off the light. Eek.

At my grandma and grandads house, the guest bedroom had an airing cupboard. Me and my cousin's when they stayed over slept in this room. I was talking to one of my cousins about the cupboard last year, saying I always had nightmares about it and it scared me. She said she was scared of it too and also had nightmares about it. It was just an ordinary cupboard so I'm not sure why :D

The cranes at the docks in Dundee in the 1970s. They were like big looming monsters as we drove along into town.

The giant kitten (Kitten Kong) off The Goodies - I was terrified of it!

This picture from the Unexplained partwork series. My dad let me read them from a young age and they properly gave me nightmares- SHC, alien abductions, vanishings, monsters. But this picture and the story that went with it terrified me for literally years- soldier is followed up stairs to his room by hideous half visible floating alien, his big tough dog is reduced to a quivering wreck. I thought this would follow me up the stairs every time and that thinking about it would summon it. Ugh.

All of the Pink Floyd video to 'Another Brick in the Wall

@snooks1971 and me!

i thought i was the only one-i saw it aged 4 and starte crying i still cant watch it it makes me feel sick my dh thinks im weird

didnt like it when the channel went off at night after the programs had finished and theres was a long beep noise

Jaws the fish (worried it would one up from loo), Incredible Hulk, jaws the person from moonraker and clowns

An episode of bergerac with this guy wearing a hooded cloak standing in someone's garden!
The wicked witch of the west (and the flying monkeys). To a lesser extent grotbags from that pink windmill programme.
Watership down..yes!
Carwashes..yes!
And the tale of the monkey's paw.