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?

Escalators and balloons were the main ones for me.

I still can't stand balloons now - they really freak me out. I also have an irrational hatred of feather dusters!

BRUM yes the little car from the children's show... I had a nightmare that burglars rode in him to my house and then set fire to my home!

Still scared of him even now! Lol

Dickie Davies from World of Sport.

I think it was the white streak in his hair.

I remember a film/tv show/something that had a scene in it where someone cut a circle out of a glass window and used that to get inside and steal a baby.
After that, I used to HATE sleeping in my room if there was a gap in the curtains but I wasn't brave enough to get up and close them properly in case the people outside saw me. I thought covering my ear with the covers would make me safe.
My bedroom was on the 3rd floor of the house so slightly irrational hahahaha.

Also the Francis the Firefly matches safety video.

That 'witches of Halloween' clip transported me right back to my childhood.
I used to sleep clutching the bedclothes tightly around me to avoid leaving a gap through which Jack the Ripper could stab me. Because taut bedding is clearly an effective defensive against knife attacks.
Also, I would flush the loo then bolt so that the toilet ghost wouldn't catch me.

The Sledgehammer video. Maybe it was the dancing chickens.

Any public information film but especially the one with Donald Pleasance called Lonely Water

Fireworks, anything loud like the Top of the Pops theme tune (Yellow Pearl)

Any unexpected break in transmission that had to be explained via a continuity announcer 'WE APOLOGISE FOR THE LOSS OF SOUND, NORNAL SERVICE WILL BE RESUMES SHORTLY'

God I was a scaredy cat.

I was terrified of Christopher Biggins.

Doctor Who.
It was scarier in black and white

I wouldn't walk past a bank on the corner. My bewildered father asked his crying daughter what was the matter.

It's on the window that 'The bank acts as Executors' so they're going to kill us.

Perhaps not unreasonably, I was terrified of the sailor buried in the ice in this picture: i.ytimg.com/vi/89Bwy-Pz7JI/hqdefault.jpg WARNING: the picture is of a dead sailor 'mummified' in ice.

It was published in a book that my mum let me flick through. Became convinced that he was haunting me. Even as an adult, the picture makes me uncomfortable.

The test card. Not the clown the girl. Shudder. ..

Stairs, ladders, escalators! Thank god we lived in a bungalow.
Public information films gave me nightmares, especially the ones where kids got run over, buried in a grain silo and electrocuted on a building site.

pylons, substations, fireworks, the plug hole (was convinced I'd get sucked down it), escalators, electric plug sockets, toasters, the gas grill, light fittings when bulbs were missing, the devil, the Words and Pictures pumpkin head man, pumpkins and so much more.

I think I must have been a bit of a nightmare child. Reckon I had a few Ishoos.

oh yes, of my teddies in the dark as well, unless they were in my bed, under the bed, I was scared of that too.

Yoga, thats John Torrington, one of the crew from Franklin and Croziers quest for the north-west passage, canadian reserchers have recently found the two ships they sailed in, the Erebus (eternal night) and the Terror. A story that has facinated and horrified me since i was a child

Lesley Judd

Omg yes i was also afraid of the plague! And the song "give me oil in my lamp keep me burning" because i didn't want to burn. so i didn't sing that line. Also in shine jesus shine i didn't sing" "burn spirit burn"

The sea...i still don't like it...i cant see all the things down there that are definitely going to grab me. And the buoys in the sea..my not so DB convinced me they were actually naughty boys and they were kept there and would chainsaw your legs off or drown you if you went anywhere near them...im still irrationally terrified of them :(
The dark and people jumping out at me.
And sloths and monkeys...dear Lord. I went on holiday to Columbia and a sloth was crawling it's way in my direction, they are not cute- they look like zombies that have been in a car accident.

Me, toilet flushing at night and volcanos

When dd was 3 she was petrified of theatre curtains. Now she is at a play at least once a week

The verse of we three kings that goes
Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom
Sorrowing sighing bleeding dying
Sealed in the stone cold tomb.

Just terrifying

I used to have nightmares about road works, they would block all the paths I tried to walk on and I couldn't get home.

My other was those big tractor tyres, I would dream they were getting rolled at me.

Bizarre

I always loved that verse of We Three Kings - found it very satisfyingly ghoulish!

Lizzie you weirdo!
It used to spoil Christmas a bit for me. Just the horror in conjunction with a tiny newborn baby Jesus

Cement mixers.

There was this activity book that came with a cassette tape with songs and the cement mixer one had strange noises on it. Equally rusty rocket.

I have never liked mechanical sounds much.

There was a programme called Chorton and The Wheelies. The evil witch in the tower gave me nightmares.