WHY I FEAR HORROR MOVIES...

Jack the Fruiterer Man

Great Expectations were felt as a child,

When Dickens’ novel was televised:

Grim, black and white,

(Now as ‘greyscale’ restyled.)

I recall sitting, well behaved

Until, during a cemetery scene, I was shocked,

For Magwitch rose from behind a gravestone

To reveal a vile and loathsome face

And I arose from my seat, jaw locked…

It made me jump, I couldn’t look,

I hid my eyes inside a football book

I was very upset, I was quite terrified,
I needed to pee and I know I cried…

In anticipation of horror as an adult,

Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’ was televised:

Stark in black and white,

A medium I’ve since reviled.

I recall relaxing, in control

Until a chair around was spun

To reveal a skeletal and rotted face

And I leapt back into my chair, quite stunned…

It made me start, I couldn’t look,

I recall how hard my shoulders shook;

I was really shaken, I was so terrified,

I nearly peed and I’m sure I cried…

He was commonly called ‘Jack the Fruiterer Man’,

Who delivered fruit and veg’ from the back of his van;

I was told that when into my pram he peered,

I screamed at the gurning visage which appeared.

Surprise became fright and I was no longer happy,

As no doubt demonstrated by the state of my nappy;

I truly recall those moments of being afeared,

An early memory which has not disappeared…

I’ve never recovered from the evil fruiterer Jack,

For sudden shocks still take me aback;

I’m suddenly distraught, when something makes me jump

And my bowels need to empty like a mechanical pump…

   

Pete Ray

December 2015

Left, but not abducted...

I really do seem to remember cowering inside my pram as the well-meaning but frightening face of Jack lowered itself to get a view of me, as I was left outside the house we shared with a grandmother in Ward End, Birmingham. Did my mother want someone to take me away, or what?

Since that time, anything which suddenly appears before me makes me jump, uncontrollably… 

A bath in the front room, our living space...

Sad.