Irrational childhood fears

My grandparents had a stuffed alligator on the stairs. I was frightened to death every time I had to walk past it. In those days the lighting was quite dim and its shadow seemed to follow me up the stairs, as did its beady eye.....

I was convinced I could hear a witch clip clopping in her big buckled shoes towards my bedroom every night. I used to hide well under the covers waiting for her to pounce.

It was really my clock's tick tock but even knowing that didn't stop my imagination when it was dark!

It reminds me of those awful rhymes we used to have chanted to us, that I now have to bite back when I find myself launching into a jolly song for my GC. I suppose they're just lodged in our subconscious.

Maggiemaybe is no good, chop her up for firewood, when she's dead, boil her head, and make it into gingerbread.

Fee fi fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman, be he alive or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread.

Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head. Chipper, chopper...

And down came a blackbird and pecked off her nose.

I think I've already traumatised DGS2 with the one about knocking the weasel off the table with a stick.

The things parents used to tell us, well at least mine did. They told me that owls would peck your eyes out if you were out at night.

I can remember walking between my parents at night with my eyes closed tight.

I also remember walking on Sutton Poyntz in Dorset with the family and my uncle told me that hawks were strong enough to swoop on a child and carry it away.

It sounds irresponsible now but they were lovely people really.

Going up the stairs to bed I believed the shadow on the wall was a wolf's head. I also thought the moon had singled me out and was looking just at me!

A late reply, but my 2 year old DGS1 is scared of "bubbons" too, Nandalot. I've been reassuring his mum and dad that he'll grow out of it long before he goes to school and needs to wear a uniform. Perhaps I've been a bit optimistic!

A polished wooden knob sticking out would be enough to give anyone nightmares, feetle!

'Moaning Minnie' was frightening -- after all, that was the idea... and the All Clear came as a blessed relief. A child at the time, of course, I was in London throughout the Blitz and indeed the rest of WWII...

But still nothing put the wind up me like those outfitters' stands for displaying e.g., overcoats - they had no heads, just a polished wooden knob sticking out at the top - in my nightmares I was chased by one, known as 'Old Neck'... I was reminded of this by the Doctor Who episode featuring The Headless Monks!

I was fine about sirens until I saw the film "The Diary of Anne Frank" where the sirens mean they are coming to get you, and everyone freezes until it has gone past to get someone else. Years later I was passing outside a cinema where it was showing, heard the sirens and nearly had a heart attack.

anno , when I hear the siren on old films it gives me goose bumps. The all clear was a much better sound, but that wailing was horrible.

The air raid siren scared me stiff as a young child, though I don't think this was irrational. In this case, it was the weekly testing of our town's siren and no bombs ever fell on us. After the war, it was used as a fire siren to summon the firefighters and it still sent shivers down my back.

The main fear I had as a child was that something would happen to my mother. Perhaps the Blitz was to blame. She played cards with friends some nights and I waited awake until I heard her key in the door.

I used to think the wartime newsreaders lived inside our large radiogram.
Current bed is a divan bed but if I ever sleep in a bed with space under it I still think someone might grab my ankles as I get in and out of bed, as I did when I was a child

My grandma always made me hide if a gypsy came to the door as, she said, they steal children. She also said if you open the door to a gypsy and don't buy anything or they know you're in but not answering then they put the evil eye on you. Needless to say I still hide from the door to door gypsies.

She also told me that the bogeyman lived in the cockloft. I hated going upstairs on my own in her house.

I believed that wolves lived upstairs in my house and they lived under my bed but if I was alone upstairs (ie on the toilet) then if I was a long while they would creep out from under the bed and get me. i remember being on the loo and my mother very crossly stomping up the stairs to keep me company. I suffered severe stomach problems as a child and now I can understand why!!!

I have to close the wardrobe doors too icy but to be honest these days I worry rather more about huge spiders than axe-men!!

janeainsworth Thank you, you are probably right in where it came from. Now how about solving why even now I can't sleep if a wardrobe door has been left open or ajar, in case the mad axeman gets me!

At my DS's house when we stay over there us a big dark wood wardrobe close to our bed and if often spontaneously opens one of the doors, spooky !

I assume the catch is faulty.

Me too, especially the dark wood one which seemed to take up most of the space in my box-room bedroom at Granny's...

thinking about it, as a child I wasn't at all keen on looming wardrobes.

well, isn't that weird? I typed pulpitations POGS but the ipad didn't like it!

POGS.... only vicars get palpitations
Don't all children feel afraid of the dark? I know I did, and would have felt much happier then with the beds we have now that go all the way down to the floor.

'The Dark', 'Bats" and "Ghosties' Woooooooooo

When I was a liitleun I used to try and hang around with my sister she would try and tell me if I didn't go home the bats would get in my hair and eat my head or shout ' ghostie Mary is behind you quick run home'. I would run like the clappers but to this day I am terrified of the dark and absolutely hate looking at bats, vile little creatures, yuk, those teeth.

I can't even take the rubbish to the outside bin in my back garden if there is a very dark night without pulpitations.

My father was in his fifties when I was born; not unusual these days but unusual back then [especially as I was on only child]. He seemed so incredibly old I was convinced he was going to die and any small illness he had worried me. I'm sure that's why I tend to hold back my feelings a lot, thinking that if I love someone I might lose them.

It's always nice to know you're not alone in your weird fears isn't it nina? I feel very reassured