Things that scared you as a child

[Good Egg]

The theme tune to tales of the unexpected (I think it was on at 9pm on a Sunday). I used to hear it from downstairs.

The theme to Heartbeat gives me school tomorrow anxiety even now at forty!!

That Ghostwatch program haunted me for years and it’s only recently I realised it was fake.

As did Corrie when the rovers caught fire and Bet was trapped. I had nightmares

 

[ElectricDreams]

I don't like having the curtains open and the lights on when it's dark outside. I don't like the idea that someone could be looking in and I can't see them. I used to hate babysitting at my sisters house as they didn't have blinds in the kitchen and I'd be too scared to go in and get food/drink

 

[shann.x]

high level toilets have always terrified me, fear started when i was 3 years old, the overflow pipe on the front of the cistern overflowed on my head and I thought the toilet was falling on me.
To this day can't go into the same room ad one, stupid fear but very glad you don't see them often anymore

 

[Wynonna]

Crimewatch e-fits

MIND THE GAP at tube stations

Julia Roberts on the poster for Notting Hill

 

[HockyRorror]

my dad took me to the park once and my mum had made a stew but she was talking on the phone and it burned and it really stank and she didn’t notice kept on talking. When we got back the burnt stew smelled disgusting and as we walked in Jonathan Ross big face was on the TV and I thought he had caused the stench so was scared of him ever after.

That is so funny!
When the Queen Mother died all the television channels switched to an emergency broadcast that showed her picture and me and my sister were terrified because whichever channel we switched to the picture was on there and we were too young to understand

 

[mirrormirror20]

The Wheelers from Return to Oz. Terrifying.

I’m still scared now

 

[mrsbucket]

For some reason I was v concerned about the Bermuda Triangle as a kid

 

[Deeznutslol]

Some of the Casualty storylines in the 2000s-2010s were absolutely horrifying. I remember watching one which was being shown as a repeat at fucking 2pm or something on a Saturday, where this girl recently had surgery, accidentally ripped through her stitches somehow when she woke up and was just screaming with her intestines hanging out .

 

[HockyRorror]

Cracking up at how many people were scared of Bowie in labyrinth because he was one of my first ever crushes in that when I was little

Was mine too, not that I knew it then

 

[HockyRorror]

I was freaked out by an episode of Dr Who. John Pertwee was my Dr and it was 'The Green Death' that did for me. It had giant maggots in it. They were scary.

I once read a Goosebumps book about a monster that was so fat he sweated snails(?!) and made children scrub him clean and it made me feel physically sick

 

[emm]

Same. I saw a show think it was 999. They showed a girl getting her hair caught in one of those pump things and she nearly died. Scarred me for life. Or I'd be scared to swim past the wave machine grates in case I got sucked in.

The song Man-eater by Hall and Oates used to scare me, when I was a kid and it came on the radio I backed out of the room covering my ears

Yeh 999 was terrifying, I remember a similar story with a girl getting her hair caught in a jacuzzi

 

[CarmenGhia]

The Wheelers from Return to Oz. Terrifying.

The faces on their helmets are weird. They are far less scary when they look up and they're odd-looking people with a bit of an attitude and makeup.

I had a very strange fear of those old-fashioned hoovers where the bag hangs down from the handle. My auntie had a massive one with a headlight on the front and I didn't trust it one bit.

 

[HockyRorror]

No 80s kids party was complete until the horrific skinned baby rabbit on a bed of lime jelly made an appearance! Just wtf were they thinking? View attachment 3806391

Not that it scared me but does anyone remember these also from 80s parties? So elegant and classy at the time! (Tbf after posting the pic I am craving a few sticks now)

 

[Libbylulu]

Not scared me…. But Saturday mornings were fabulous

 

[mirrormirror20]

Street sweeping machines I think I thought they could get you and pull you under

 

[EnglishRoseIrishRover]

- The Incredible Hulk- back in ye olden day when there was only 3 TV channels and Lou Ferrigno was seemingly never off the Telly when I was wee. He was scary!

-The Pink Panther- the cartoon character. I have no idea why. Maybe it was the fact that he didn’t speak and always looks like a smug git?

- ET. My father took me to see this at the cinema with my best friend at the time when it came out, so I think I would have been 4. He’d probably heard it was a good kids movie but it scared the bejeezus out of me- the bit at the beginning where you only see glimpses of it running through the woods and making those noises is extremely scary. Knowing my father, he would have made me sit and watch the whole thing while ignoring my distress and saying “don’t be silly”

I have grown out of my fear of Hulk and the Panther but I still don’t particularly like ET and don’t understand people who say it’s the best film ever

 

[CarmenGhia]

The Wheelers are nothing compared to the pure evil that is the Skeksis from The Dark Crystal. If I saw a Skeksi with an old hoover, I would have spontaneously combusted with fear.

 

[Stickladylove]

When the railway safety person used to come and do an assembly at school. You would get excited when they wheeled the tv and vcr out and put a tape on, but it was pure doom, then after they'd run through all the horrific injuries you might get, and how you might die. Even now I feel a bit nervous stepping over the gap on to a train and standing too close to a yellow line incase I lose a limb

All those public safety videos scarred me, even now, I hate escalators after the video of the welly getting mangled on the side of one and will avoid them wherever possible!

 

[PumpkinKing]

I swear I was scared of everything as a kid.
Clowns
Candy man
Skelator
Worzel gummidge
Worms
Spiders. My dad used to chase me and my mum with them
Mr soft from the mints advert
Swimming pools cos I thought a shark was gonna somehow come through the grate

The only one that doesn’t still scare me is candy man!

 

[BigBrenda]

Black toilet seats. They still do now. My mum reckons it’s because in that film is it, look who’s talking? The toilet speaks?? I don’t know but those, rubber gloves, and lifts. Was so scared as a kid. And people with legs missing.

There was a man who used to give me the creeps as a child, like really would scare me. He used to drive a mobility scooter with the fake leg sticking out and id run.
Anyway as I got older my mum told me he was actually a convicted peadophile and I was probably picking up some sort of vibe, rather than being scared of someone with a false leg.