Childhood fears?

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 🤣

Telly fears…Mr Noseybonk, obvs. What the AF were they thinking?

But much of my childhood was in the far east, so actual snakes, spiders, scorpions, rats. All that shit.

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.