Books and Other Things That Scared You

[philipdalton]

I seem to remember when I was in junior school there was a little girl who was very sensitive and fainted in class when she heard this story about Cyclops getting stabbed in the eye.
The RE teacher told us once that the Romans used to execute people using a 'slide' which sliced them in half down the middle and I think some of the children were amazed when she didn't faint upon hearing that.
Given the sensitivity of some children, not to mention some adults, it's not too difficult to understand the amount of fuss made over 'video nasties' in the 80's.

[Richard1978]

Re: Ladybird Books

I remember being shocked at someone being killed in a car crash in one episode of How We Used To Love. The agonised screams as the car caught fire really got to me for a couple of hours.

[philipdalton]

Re: Ladybird Books

It's not only that, parents can often be concerned about things their children are being taught about, especially in sex education or biology lessons

When I was 15 in 1984/85 my parents were troubled by a book I brought home from school called 'Biology For Life' which contained a chapter on reproduction in which there was a passage describing a form of sex between two men in graphic detail.

[HG]

Books and Other Things That Scared You

Spinoff from the Ladybird book thread

[Powdered toast man]

Re: Books and Other Things That Scared You

Ah yes, I always remember having a small pocket-sized book about ghosts and haunted houses. I think it was one of those glossy Osborne books(had hot air balloon for the logo). It had some very vivid images of things like headless drummer-boys and the one page I always used to skip, had an illustration of a series of events that happened in an American farmhouse. One of the pictures showed blood dripping down on to the dining room table as the family were sat around it. And another picture of just a man's face, which was grey, had silver eyes, a very sinister all-knowing grin and a trickle of blood running down from his forehead. It was supposed to have been the face of a man that had been murdered in the farmhouse in the past. It was the only picture in a book to have ever really scared me as a kid.

[Adam]

Re: Books and Other Things That Scared You

The intro to Near and Far used to freek me out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83er9jJjciY

[philipdalton]

Re: Books and Other Things That Scared You

When I was about 15 there was a book they did in history at school which was a bit scary. It contained a chapter on surgery before the days of anaesthesia, and there was an excerpt from a letter written by someone who had actually undergone a limb amputation at this time themselves, in which he rebuked surgeons who disliked the use of anaesthesia because they felt that 'unendurable agony is the best of tonics'.
Here's a link to an online book in which the entire letter is featured in one chapter. It might take a long time finding it but you will if you look hard enough. http://www.erowid.org/library/books_..._over_pain.pdf

[staffslad]

Re: Books and Other Things That Scared You

In one of the Thunderbirds annuals from the 60s--it's the one with a text story called 'Moonquake' in it if anyone has a copy--there was a 2-page spread with a title something like '113 to save 1 life' or similar. There was a huge photograph of rescue people and equipment employed to save someone's life, though I can't recall who was saved and in what situation. Anyway, in the rough midle there was a kind of stretcher thing and what looked to me to be an incredibly-thin person laying on it. It wasn't, of course; my mind had just created the image from various folds and bits of equipment. When I was older I realised and the picture lost its ability to frighten me, but for years prior to that I just couldn't look at that picture and avoided those pages like the plague.

[zabadak]

Re: Books and Other Things That Scared You

The film Jaws had a huge effect on me! Scared me silly!

Later, when playing the David Bowie song Holy Holy (the remake on the B-side of the Diamond Dogs single), I would get really nervous, without knowing why.

Then I realised - the intro is the same as the theme to Jaws!

[ZipperCat]

Re: Books and Other Things That Scared You



https://2warpstoneptune.com/2016/02/02/the-hamlyn-book-of-ghosts-in-fact-and-fiction-by-daniel-farson-hamlyn-1978/

[victorbrunswick]

Re: Books and Other Things That Scared You

For me it was this one.
Strangely Enough by C.B. Colby

[Mulletino]

Re: Books and Other Things That Scared You

I was obsessed with Ghosts and stuff as a kid (still am a bit) and used to love reading Ghost books, even though they scared me. We'd all sit in one of the cars in our driveway and tell Ghost stories to each other. Also Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World used to send shivers down my spine sometimes.

I used to collect "The Unexplained" magazine, and the first issue of that came with a flimsy plastic record of "voices from the grave" where a German Scientist apparently set up microphones and communicated with a grave. We played that round a friend's house and none of us would sleep in that room after that.

Apart from the usual, like Doctor Who monsters, the one thing that I always found spooky as a kid for some reason was the song "My Grandfather's Clock". We had it on single and it always spooked me.