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?

Ken Dodd

A really old Enid Blyton that had an illustration of a mans face looking out the branches of the tree at one of the girls.
He had his finger over his lips and the caption was "sssshhhh little miss"
Used to really scare me when I turned the page and saw it.

Oh god and also "watership down".

Most. Terrifying. Film. Ever.

snooks I didn't realise I was scared of church spires poking out of reservoirs until now! Freaky!

I am fascinated and scared in equal measures of abandoned places generally, mostly theme parks. Although I've never been to one (shudder) I've seen loads of pics on the internet and it's like a car crash, I can't look away.
Also ruins of giant statues, like when there is just a random foot left, like in Lost. I also once saw a picture of the Statue of Liberty's foot in a park en route to its destination and that freaked me out no end.

We lived in a creaky house and for reasons I can't remember, I was scared there were 'army people' landing on the roof. I can't remember what led me to think that was at all logical

Certain films and TV shows scared me for weeks on end, most notably the Emmerdale plane crash and the film of Roald Dahl's The Witches. Still give me the shudders now!

I used to be scared of walking towards a toilet with the seat up. I thought it looked like a monster with a big open mouth: and as a child it's at your eye level.

Any equipment where a switch or button moved by itself; such as the "play" button popping up on a cassette player, or a toaster handle.

Alarm clocks: especially if they glowed in the dark, or the old mechanical ones with bells on the top, where the alarm winder would spin as it rang (see buttons moving by themselves).

An ancient spin drier my parents had which I was warned was extremely dangerous: because when you opened the lid, it would still be spinning for a good twenty seconds, and anyone who put an arm in might lose it. Probably only half joking.

Also I used to freak out if I had to actively do something that would bring on my own discomfort: sometimes this was worse than the thing itself. Examples were:

• Having to look (and smile) at someone taking a photo, to then be dazzled by the flash, or the sun;
• Having to roll up my own sleeve for an injection;
• Having to put out my own hand (or bend over) for a smack; somehow worse than the smack itself.
• I couldn't possibly pull the string on a party popper, I was (and still am) terrified of bangs.
• Having to jump into the swimming pool; I might not have minded being pushed!
• I remember finding the idea of Jesus carrying his own cross almost as disturbing as crucifixion itself. Ditto stories about school pupils handing over the cane which would then be used on them, and the scene in Roald Dahl's "Boy" where the five boys had to watch and wait their turn (while the loathsome Mrs Pratchett against whom the boys had sinned cheered the headmaster on).

The theme tune to casualty. when i was about 5 or 6 we'd play doctors in the playground, including the chest compressions part of cpr, but on the tummy not the chest. I then heard doing CPR on a living person can kill them and never do it unless their heat as stopped and i panicked so badly i'd done damage to myself. My mum was a big casualty fan so every saturnday night i'd hide upstairs when the theme was on (can't remember if i hid for the whole program, i just remember sitting top of the stairs ears covered trying not to hear the theme). I ended up getting so freaked out i told my parents what had happened and they had to reassure me i was perfectly fine and hadn't done anything awful to myself or my friends. Then became a big fan of the show.

I was always terrified of walking under the loft hatch in our hallway, because I was convinced that an Ancient Egyptian sarcophagus would fall down on top of me. Because that's clearly the sort of thing my parents kept up there...

I used to think that our head stones were already in the cemetery with our date of death on, I used to be terrified that I would see my name and find out when it is I would die

Related to Snooks1971, if the tide on the river Thames was halfway up, and you could see steps disappearing under the water.

Also I loved road signs, but I just couldn't imagine these signs were real: the idea of either was terrifying!

Waterfalls did and still do. They make me dizzy.

Ugh the song Lily the Pinkshudder

The little twiggy character from Rupert ( the original version)
The witch from Chorlton and the Wheelies

The onion domes of Moscow and in fact any candytwist architecture including on columns outside Victorian houses. Also the story Hansel and Gretel so there must be some kind of food taboo going on here.

The Hobyahs.

Google it.

Now imagine it as a 70s children's picture book.

Why? Just why?!

this

Toilets

When i was very young:
windscreen wipers
my nans cuckoo clock
my nans very old hoover
bears. anything to do with them, including the xmas carol Holy and The Ivy because one verse says the holly bares the crown. Tearfully I used to tell my mum i didn't like the holly bears

As an older kid that episode of Armchair Thriller with the faceless nun. Everyone was talking about it the next day at school!

keeping Silver ones or any toilet?

id sooner have pissed myself as a child than go for a wee on a silver bog

Can't remember exactly what it was called, but a cartoon owl that was on telly when the kids programmes finished in the 70s. 'heads under wings, beaks under blankets....'. I'd have a fit of the screaming ab dabs every day, my mother learnt to switch the telly off before Owl O'Clock. Hell I still get the jitters now and I'm 44....:

Does anyone remember the .little sketch thing in the Teletubbies where the little man in the Scottish hat appeared in windows in a house? DS1 was terrified of him.

Serving hatches!

The car wash. Just remember thinking that the doors were going to open, the water was going to get in and the washy things (I'm sure they have a proper name) were going to get us.

I'm still a bit wary of them now...

My parents' wardrobes, especially the handles. God knows why, they were perfectly normal, if horrible seventies-style wardrobes.

Lorry cabs, since someone* ill-advisedly let me watch Maximum Overdrive.
W
Rats in the toilet, since ilI-advisedly let me watch When the Wind Blows.

*my brother

The ATV ident, particularly the music with the fanfare.

What were those thin French fry-shaped crisps called - Chipsticks or something? - the Worcester sauce flavour of those

Yy to pylons. Bloody public information films.

When there was a longer than usual gap with a blank screen between adverts, or adverts and a programme. Probably because it often meant a public information film was going to come on. See above.

I was also scared of those special IBA announcements. A lot of mine are telly-related I think it's because I was ill quite a bit as a young child and my parents often sat up with me in the living room at night and had the TV on.