As a young boy I was fascinated by a double page spread in my Ward Lock encyclopedia that showed loads of prehistoric creatures in one pic; mammoths and pterodactyls and T rexs and so on. Also, the airing cupboard was in my bedroom so this meant that the noise from the hot water tank was in reality the dinosaurs ready to get me as I drifted off to sleep. Terrifying but I loved that picture so much I kept on looking at it.
MrsAmbrose has just admitted to being scared of the Thunderbirds 'Mole' because she didn't know where it might come up out of the ground- perhaps in her house.
What troubled you, something silly now but proper scary at the time.
Sharks.
Rabies.*
Sharks with rabies.
* Survivors, 'Mad Dog.'
Battery powered boats that sink in shark infested waters.
@Ambrose
Full Member
Bizarrely, my son works Daleks and the TARDIS for a living. He’s got a trophy for being top Daleks wrangler for 2022 or something like that.
This comment deserves fleshing out.👍
Crocodiles. Envisioned them coming into the house. Apparently in my mind they could climb stairs without issue.
And shopkeepers.
Swimming in abandoned quarries, train tracks, oversized rubber spiders and also Zelda from Terrahawks.
Edited to add, nuns.
Terrahawks Zelda was a nasty piece of work.
If I had to say something, it would be Zelda...very creepy.
Or the Steksis .. they were seriosly messed up.
The dalecks are not so frightening once you understand it's just a dwarf in a radio controlled dustbin.
The dalecks are not so frightening once you understand it’s just a dwarf in a radio controlled dustbin.
Whereas everyone knew there was a strong chance that Zelda was somewhere nearby ...
What troubled you, something silly now but proper scary at the time.
The only thing I remember being bothered about was nuclear war (late 70's) but don't think that passes the silly now test.
... or Ronnie Wood for that matter.
Giraffes
Most kids said Daleks , I was more scared of the creatures on Lost In Space.
Rabies, AIDS, reservoirs, electricity pylons.
Those public safety ads have a lot to answer for.
Re: No1 son
Degree in electronics and sound production at University in Cardiff. Now works with and for BBC and or their production companies at various locations etc. Dr Who is his main thing, the underworld (beneath the TARDIS) is one of his fortés. And apparently so to is driving a Dalek.
@andy5390 - how do you avoid getting older? I note you've listed 3 things but only counted 2 - is the inability to count the answer as you don't actually know what number comes next? 😉
The Yorkshire Ripper
I was terrified of dogs as a child, apart from the one we owned. I wouldn't go near them and wouldn't even walk past a barking dog even if it was locked behind a gate. Now I'm not remotely scared of them but I honestly can't remember when or why it changed.
People.
I didn't join cubs/scouts after a piece on local news showing an "initiation".
I feared any public attention after been made to go up to a market stall demo (knives or some other hardware) and interact with the demonstrator.
I didn't get over my fear of attention until uni, when being in an average student band cured me.
Andy Pandy
Nuclear war
Losing a brother or cousin to child abduction (it was quite the industry in 1970s North America)
Sharks in swimming pools, because… Jaws
Quicksand
Definitely this. And rabies, having read detailed accounts of it at too young an age.
Nuclear war not so much - dad was in the RAF and it was just "a thing".
Later childhood was when AIDS was known to not just be a threat to gay men. It made me suitably careful though, I'm pleased to say.
Dogs for me. Once ran clear across a road when an old english sheep dog tried to sniff me.
Was solved when my dad became a dog handler in the police!
Death.
At a very young age, the whole idea that one day I wouldn't be here/exist scared the bejesus out of me.
My Mum and Dad would try and reassure me with all the 'right' replies,but the young me just couldn't get his head around forgetting about it for a few decades.
I think it's been a big part of me trying anything and everything along this trip.
Signed.
The Weird Kid 😆 🤣
Ugly-wugglies from late 70's BBC tv show The Enchanted castle. Not many people seem to remember this, the ugly-wugglies were things made from old clothes and broom sticks brought to life, which lived in the walls. Terrified me as a kid, probably not helped by the fact I had a small door in my bedroom leading to loft space.
More cybermen than daleks for me. I'm 60ish. I can remember hiding behind a chair watching telly as the episode drew to it's conclusion.
The scariest episodes were always ones with the Brigadeer in.
At school it was English lessons. I had a bad stutter back then. Sat there waiting for my turn to read a paragraph, I was sat there, heart going at 180 totally bricking myself.
Lizzie Dripping. Used to hide behind my grandmas couch but couldn’t stop watching!
Rupert the Bear - always something creepy about him! 🙂
Ohh, and telephone boxes thanks to this film...
I always had to jam my foot in the door to stop it fully closing behind me.
The binmen and their terrifying lorry with that crusher thing on the back.
Perfect for STW, my only vivid memory of a childhood fear is an I'm not racist but...
We went to a cricket match, not sure if my dad was playing or something. I needed the loo and was sent to the pavilion on my own. Ran back to get my mum, too scared to go in because there were a big crowd of fellas in turbans all stood round the hut!! A very sheltered life down in Hampshire it was 🤣
My grandpa had a curtain behind the door of his old tenement flat. I realise now it was a cunning way of keeping us kids away from the front door but he warned us that behind the curtain was where the bogeyman hid.
Mannequins...
Daleks. My mum took me to a Dr Who exhibition in the Science Museum London in the early 1970s. Seeing them wasn't too scary but it convinced my brain that Daleks were real. There then followed nightmares where the Daleks followed me home from London by travelling along the train lines to our flat.
Also I was convinced that your eyes had a finite amount of looking before they wore out, same for breathing, so I used to close my eyes a lot and try to breathe slowly to preserve my finite allotment of seeing and breathing.
Odd child tbh
1970s TV had a lot to answer for tbh. See also The Changes where everyone goes mental, society breaks down, elements of modernity such as electricity generation are shunned, we revert to travelling nomads.... A bit like a future under the net zero cult.
Also see the Owl Service and Look & Read: Cloudburst
Quicksand, slurry pits, pylons.
Owls looking at me through the window.
Witches flying between the big trees at the back of the garden.
Oh and anything my mates older brother told me:
The creepy old man raising a gun into the air whilst we collected a football.
The UFO landing site in the field behind our house.
I remember wondering how I'd ever manage to navigate airports on my own.
Dreams & nightmares - yeah, just remembered I hated my dreams because they were always surreal and scary. Like the one about our house being attacked by a drill. I even made up a prayer to say at night to hope I wouldn't dream! 😆 My dreams still are very surreal and scary, but I quite enjoy them now.
Willow the Wisp. That creepy voice in the dark woods. How on earth was that even a TV programme?
That, and our attic obviously.
I remember wondering how I’d ever manage to navigate airports on my own.
I had a similar one about wondering how I would ever know how to drive anywhere in a car (and also worried about being able to drive in a straight line - it all looked so hard with the constant adjustments).
Sharks , saw Jaws way too young
Dogs. Just too many loud barking everywhere
Fun Fairs . I used to go with mum , never enjoyed it they alone as a teen to try to fit in and didn't really enjoy it then either.
The Incredible Hulk - a kid in my class (infants) had a t-shirt with it on and I hid under the desk til lunch then refused to go back to school. We had a video shop (yes VHS, for those of you who are old enough) so Mum drew a 'tache like my Dad's, on the Hulk on the cover to make him more friendly!
Oh and The Wheelers from Return to Oz
Vat da fack?!
Needing a poo in a foreign country and not being able to ask where the toilet was.
Being trapped in a cave with rising water*.
This nearly came true when I went potholing and there was a water chute where you had to lie on your belly and slide down into the pool below. All of the rest of the group slid down, splashed into the pool and popped up laughing. I slid down but my battery pack for the headtorch had slid round from the side to the back and I got jammed with my head just in the pool but unable to move forward or backwards because of the battery. It took 15 hours with one person holding my head up out of the water (actually about 2 minutes) for them to free me. I now suffer from claustrophobia which I didn't before.
Edges.
When I was five or six I almost fell down a large pit, probably part of a drainage system on a building site ( my parents’ friend took us to see his new school being built when he probably shouldn’t have). I stepped on a concrete paving stone which cracked and I ended up with one foot trapped and the rest of me in the hole. I remember it being bottomless but probably ten or fifteen feet deep.
Ever since I have hated edges-quay sides, cliffs, bridge parapets etc. etc. As a kid I would walk as far away from any edge as possible but if forced to stand near an edge I would feel strangely drawn to lean out and fall- scared the pants off me for years
Strangely enough I don’t have a fear of heights if I have started from the bottom, such as climbing ladders or masts of boats.
Mountain biking has greatly helped me come to terms with this, but I still am very uncomfortable on some rides with drops to one side
I get that 'edges' feeling of wanting to lean out until fall over them too
Baboon spiders. Boomslangs. Mambas. Drop toilets. Quicksand.
WorldClassAccident
Free Member
I get that ‘edges’ feeling of wanting to lean out until fall over them too
Of all people, you bloody would
Tigers, they were everywhere. Under the bed, inside cupboards, waiting for me going to the coal bunker - terrifying, even more so having seen them in the flesh at Kincraig. Still give me bloody nightmares at 68
My mother was a nurse and had a medical book with a picture of the back of someone's head that had a hole about 10cm diameter and you could see their brain
Hmm, quicksand - I reckon we must have all watched the same screening of 'Ice Cold in Alex.'
Also: stonefish.
And choking on peanuts.
Attempting to swallow apple skin though swallowing 2p coins didn't scare me until I realised what goes in must be excreted.
And tropical spiders, usually lurking in bunches of bananas waiting to get you.
The Incredible Shrinking Man has a lot to answer for.
Nuclear war
Quicksand
Aquatic predators coming through the pipes to attack me when I was on the loo
Noseybonk, obviously
And one my mum likes to remind me of periodically - being worried that the Man from Atlantis was going to drown.
