To want to know a light-hearted childhood fear?

[GeorgeAndTimmyTheDog]

What I mean is you can possibly laugh about it now.
For instance because of reading the Unexplained magazine growing up I was convinced I was going to "Self human combust" as that was an article in there.
Also an adult told me that bleach "Makes things smaller" so I was petrified to sit on the loo if I could smell bleach as I thought my bottom would disappear.

😂😂🤣

Incredible Hulk! Stupid phone.

So many of these were mine and my brothers’ childhood fears!

Quicksand
spontaneous human combustion
the Bermuda Triangle

and Alien Hand Syndrome after seeing a bit of a documentary about it once 😂

Interesting someone said Trevor McDonald - my brother was scared of Moira Stewart because he thought she would tell him off as she was so serious!

Bears and giants. I never saw either of those in Mid Sussex where I grew up, but I was terrified nonetheless that one or both would somehow come in through my bedroom window at night (leaving aside the fact that neither a bear nor giant would have been able to fit through said window).

Sharks in the swimming pool.

Getting struck by lightening

Poltergeists - the writing around them always said they prefer teenage girls. As if I didn't have enough to worry about at that ages with spots, periods, crushes, fashion, perverts, Blur vs Oasis etc.

I was simultaneously obsessed with the mirror as a teen to do make up and squeeze spots, and terrified in case I accidentally summoned Candyman or saw Bloody Mary behind me.

That's why my (Constance Carroll, 3 times too dark for me) foundation was completely shit - had to be be blindly applied!!

I'm not googling "Alien👽 hand syndrome" because I'm worried I actually have had that all my life 😂

You must pull the chain on the upstairs loo and then sprint out of the bathroom and down the corridor (including 2 steps) and be onto the rug on the landing before it stops flushing or the THING that lives in the cistern will get you.

When I visit my parents at my childhood home I still find myself hurrying!

Tulips still can't touch them now

@Theresamooselooseabootthishoose :

”That a witch would hear me flush the chain after having a poo and come get me.. I always left shits in the toilet and creeped around quiet as a mouse”

I had almost exactly the same fear, specifically that a witch would hear me flush the toilet and come and get me. I used to open the bathroom door, get ready like a sprinter on the start line, and then flush and run like hell.

Public information films have a lot to answer for ...you were in constant danger from pylons, ice cream vans, quicksands, unattended building sites... a whole generation scarred by the perceived versus actual risk!

I had the flush fear too! It signaled to the monsters outside the bathroom that you were leaving the safe confines of said bathroom, so you had to sprint back to bed before they made it there.

And then I picked up a terrible fear of rats coming up the toilet from When the Wind Blows.

I was also terrified of my parents (hideous, seventies) fitted wardrobes. They had metal handles with strange carvings, so were obviously portals to the netherworld.

Recurring childhood dream about drowning in an overground pool filled with fanta and nobody being able to see i was drowning! 45 years on i cant drink any fizzy orange drink without feeling sick and anxious!! P.s. we dis bot have a pool!

If I wanted to walk to my parents room at night I thought a wolf would grab my ankles through the bannisters.

Also very worried a stampede of animals (jumanji style) would burst through our back door, run up our stairs and trample me in my bunk bed

Big Foot. If we ever drove through a wooded area at night, I'd be convinced a Big Foot with red glowing eyes would be standing amongst the trees just staring at me.

There's a huge bridge near us and mum and dad jokingly told me when I was little that you had to drive over the top of it! Not thru it. I grew up and learning to drive and never going that way on purpose as it looked petrifying and it took a long time to realise it was a joke 😂

I still do too but didn’t like to admit it!!

Quicksand. And the Bermuda Triangle.

Despite living in London.

We used to live on a farm and we had to walk past the cow byre and bull house on the way home. If the cows were inside the byre the noise of their clanking chains was deafening and I was sure they'd all run out at me. But that paled into insignificance compared to walking past the bull. Enormous, terrifying beast that would bellow at anyone walking by. It was daily torture!

@flapjackfairy that is exactly what I thought. I was convinced something horrendous would happen to me if I didn't make it down the stairs before it refilled!

Looking in mirrors at my grandparents house, because I'd just read the Ladybird version of Dracula and if I was looking in a mirror I wouldn't be able to see him coming up behind me!
Oh and there's an excellent episode of the podcast Criminal all about Ghostwatch and other fake reality events (such as the War of the Worlds broadcast). Some with awful real life consequences too!

Me too, I even rang the Tampax toxic shock helpline convinced I had it one time...think it was actual sunburn I had haha

There's one called "The spirit of dark and lonely water" from the 70's. I'm not going to put it here, it's on YouTube but it was to scare children away from water and it's absolutely terrifying. It's narrated by and stars death/the grim reaper. It's a wonder any of us went anywhere near water ever again.

The plug hole whilst water went down it in the bath