Scary Stories...



Charlie - The actual ventriloquist doll I had when I was 7

I'm sure there was scarier stuff around when we were little.  I'm not talking about the stuff the media thrusts into our homes day in, day out without asking us.  I'm not talking about the obvious, evil people and events in the news and darker depths of the internet. 

There were definitely scarier toys for instance - like Charlie, pictured here.  He is the actual ventriloquist puppet I opened as a little girl one Christmas. He'd scare the life out of me now but then, I was so pleased with him.

And what’s happened to all those scary stories we used to hear as kids?

I'm talking about folklore. Eery tales of macabre and chilling happenings that older kids used to thrive on telling to younger kids. And that the younger kids would then try and scare their mothers with!  I remember one in particular...

I think I was about 10 yrs old in my legwarmers and navy body warmer, at Tina’s birthday party.  Tina had an older sister, Mandy.  After the usual party games & food, Mandy thought it’d be a great idea to gather us all around and tell us the tale of Epping Forest.

The room was hushed and we all stared at her as she started the tale…

 

“There was a young couple who’d decided to take a drive and ended up near Epping forest… (Mandy was only about 13 herself so her story telling skills weren’t that hot on detail, or atmospherics but us being 10  were hooked already)! and it was getting dark so the boyfriend thought it’d be fun to take a short cut through the forest.  They drove a little way in and it started getting really dark and the trees were thick all around them in their little car.  The girl started feeling uneasy.  A few minutes later and they were right in the middle of the forest when the car stalled and then died.  They had run out of petrol! They had a few cross words as the girl couldn’t believe her boyfriend hadn’t noticed they were running on empty. “Look” said the boyfriend, “you’re going to have to sit here with the doors locked while I go and get petrol. We passed a garage a couple of miles back. I’m really sorry but it’s too cold to just sit here til morning.  You’ll be ok, just don’t open the doors”.  They said there goodbyes and the girlfriend watched in the rear view mirror as her boyfriend jogged into the distance, gradually dissolving in the darkness.  The girl was really scared at first but kept talking to herself and reassured herself that everything would be fine if she just closed her eyes and had a little sleep. She managed to doze off but woke suddenly with a steady thudding noise on the roof of the car.  She was groggy as she realised it’d had just started getting light and she must’ve been asleep for a few hours. The thudding was then accompanied by a loud speaker, “This is the police, very slowly get out of the car and walk towards us. Do not look behind you! I repeat, do not look behind you”.  The girl looked in the rear view mirror and the wing mirrors and was startled to see three police cars, lights flashing, and several police men.  She did as they ordered and slowly opened the passenger side door and edged away from the car towards the direction of the Police.  “It’s ok love, just keep walking to us and don’t turn around, it’s alright” the Policemen said, stretching his arms out to her. The thudding noise continued behind her and as she touched hands with the Policeman, she couldn’t resist the urge to turn round.  There, on the roof of her car, hunched over, was an escaped mad man, banging something on to the roof of the car….as she looked closer, she realised it was her boyfriends severed head” AGGGGGGGH!!!

Now,  this story had never been in the papers and I’d never seen it on the news but we were all convinced that The Mad Axe Man of Epping Forrest was real and that particular event had actually happened.  It scared the life out of us and I’m sure we all went off and told numerous others and scared them witless.  This is how folklore works.  Gather a few gullible people together, create the atmosphere and convince them that the tale is real.

Since then, I have heard the one about the old woman hitch hiker who gets a lift off a sympathetic driver who upon hearing a news story on the radio, puts two and two together and realises this old woman next to him has huge, manly hands.  He tells the ‘woman’ he needs to stop to go for a wee and leaps out of the car and runs.  He returns a few minutes later with the Police in tow and the old woman has gone but she’s left a huge knife under the passenger seat!

More recently there’s the one about making sure you always check the back of your car before you get in.  One shopper didn’t bother and got in their car, drove some way down the road and started getting flashed by the headlights of a manic driver behind them.  They feared the driver but felt uncomfortable all of a sudden, as though they weren’t alone.  Screeching to a halt, they jumped out of the car at the same time the driver following them pulled up and waving frantically at them yelled, “there’s somebody in your car…quick, run, they climbed in your car when you went to pay for your petrol”!

Again, this was spread around like wild fire and it got everyone going, “FOR FUQSAKE ALWAYS LOCK YOUR CAR DOORS”!!!

Anyhoo, I was aware that I’ve been getting a bit ‘health food & exercise obsessive’ – (see what I did there Sphillips05) so I thought I’d change the subject.  I’d love to hear your scare stories from ye olden days.  Any tales that stuck in your mind from your childhood/teenage years?

I don’t want to hear real nastiness, or true stories… just the ones that made us go “OOOOHH AGGGGGH”. 

Oh and here's a scary thing... I've lost 3lbs! So I am now 11 stone 8lb which is the lightest I have weighed in two years - GOOD TIMES!  I went to run tonight and I have proper shin splints, so I did 10 mins of interval training on the treadmill and had to give in and do 10 mins on the crosstrainer - BAD TIMES!  If anyone knows a quick cure, lemme know please?

;)