What's the most frightening memory you had as a child?

[fatpizzaman]

There were two that I can readily think of that frightened me heaps:

1) When I was on holiday in Paris in 1974 I saw some kind of play about Napoleon Bonaparte that took place near the local hospital. I don't remember much but the play contained a lot of shouting and fireworks exploding in the sky. I didn't know what they were at the time and they scared the living daylights out of me. I was 3 at the time.

2) A few years later when I was 8, I was leafing through a copy of Reader's Digest when I saw and advert that was asking for donations to LEPRA (the leprosy research society at lepra.org.uk). The picture showed a young woman who was afflicted by the disease - she was virtually mutilated with no fingers on her hands, half her teeth were gone, there were sores all over her face and had lost one eye. She looked awful and I had nightmares over the picture for days afterwards. My mother took away the magazine and cut the advert out and put it somewhere else, and said that whenever I was naughty she'd threaten to show me the picture again.

[victorbrunswick]

Re: What's the most frightening memory you had as a child?

You'll laugh at this. But the General Electric logo used to scare the hell out of me when I was a kid. I remember one night I was watching TV by myself and a programme came on that was sponsored by GE. The moment the GE logo filled the screen I ran from the room in terror! Even though, obviously, it's not frightening to me anymore there must be some instinctive vestige hardwired into my brain because it still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

[Trickyvee]

Re: What's the most frightening memory you had as a child?

For genuine terror, it has to be when I almost crawled off a cliff edge when I was about 8. I was messing about in the long grass on the top and did not realise it was the cliff edge. I put my hand out to crawl further and next thing I knew I was staring down at the swirling waves and rocks below. I've never forgotten that!

I also had a similar thing as FPM seeing a picture of a stillborn two-headed baby with some disorder in the News of the World magazine (IIRC this magazine always had something like this each week).

Other scary things can be found in this thread
https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/t...+things+scared

[darren]

Re: What's the most frightening memory you had as a child?

as a kid i waas always exploring and one time and another fella crawlwed our way along a river bak which has to high sides.
one side has a railweay line along it the other side had a very higjh wall which was the bottom of a street mournview st it was called.

Think was the bank was very narrow but quite high in places.

so i inched myself along being careful not to fall into the water which was deep and very cold and i couild not swim either still cant until i came to a point where i could go nio further.
so what i had to was climb over the wall.

thing was it was high which scared me as i hate heights the water below me deep and i could not swim.


i stood there frozen with genuine fear and i thought i was going to die
stuck between a rock and a hard place.

i must have stood there for what seemed ages i did eventually get over it but i have never been so genuinely scared before that or since it.

im quite sure i wwas only ten or younger at the time.

[Finnthedude]

Re: What's the most frightening memory you had as a child?

When I was very young (5 or 6?) I saw Jason and the Argonauts on TV (the 1963 version of course) for the first time. I remember really enjoying it right up until the scene where Talos (the giant bronze statue) comes to life. The specific part where he looks down at Hercules who has stolen a giant pin absolutely scared the living bejesus out of me. Freaked me out, what with all that metallic creaking and all.

Still love the film but even now, nearly 40 years later I still get a little tingle when that scene comes on.

Cheers,
Finnthedude.

[sf1378]

Re: What's the most frightening memory you had as a child?

When I was very young (5 or 6?) I saw Jason and the Argonauts on TV (the 1963 version of course) for the first time. I remember really enjoying it right up until the scene where Talos (the giant bronze statue) comes to life. The specific part where he looks down at Hercules who has stolen a giant pin absolutely scared the living bejesus out of me. Freaked me out, what with all that metallic creaking and all.

Still love the film but even now, nearly 40 years later I still get a little tingle when that scene comes on.



Cheers,
Finnthedude.

Thats one of my favourite scenes in a film.

[Sly]

Re: What's the most frightening memory you had as a child?

I've been thinking back and I cannot remember a single thing that I was totally fearful of. There was stuff I was scared of, but nothing that made me scared to remember it that way.

[darren]

Re: What's the most frightening memory you had as a child?

one very frightening thig was when i was watching jaws the first one on tv.
its the bit where the dad is out on the boat at night and either he or the other fella looks in the water or dives in and this head floats up.

scared the life out of me and i ran behind the couch.
think i was ten.

[escorteclipse1990]

Re: What's the most frightening memory you had as a child?

Not so much a frighting memory, but i remember being about nine years old and in the family car (mk2 Cavalier B reg) sat in the back looking out of the window when i spotted a yellow mk1 Fiesta that had gone off the road and hit a tree at some speed as it buried its self into the tree as it was only the back end intact! I told my dad to stop the car as i spotted this, and he went down to have alook, i remember him telling me not to have a look as it was not a pretty sight two people killed. I remember dad telling me that the police told him the car had been there for three days as it was in a wooded area and it was a fluke i spotted it.

[Richard1978]

Re: What's the most frightening memory you had as a child?

The accident at the 1992 Woodford airshow.