I grew up with an intense fear of ghosts, or, more specifically, polterguist. This was my childhood:

When I was five I asked my mother what gravity was. I had heard the name bandied about a few times and I wanted to know what relevance it had to every-day life, if any. My mother looked at me, then looked left and right as if we were being watched (which we were, because we were on a beach and mum was talking very loudly and had her luxury beach towel around me as I tried to get changed without anyone seeing my naked body; oddly I remember feeling very embarrassed), and said “there is no such thing as gravity–”

I said, “right–what are you on about mum? Isn’t it what makes things fall down and stuff?” (I don’t recall the exact words: I was five…)

She said, “Well–gravity is really just playful poltergeist children messing about! So you had better be careful, hadn’t you!” (Mother was always a bit weird; she did amateur dramatics and according to dad it tipped her over the edge when she failed to make it as a professional actress.) It didn’t help that when she made this statement polterguist’s were very much in vogue, with the film of the same name playing at cinemas everywhere and scaring the hell out of all ages. (Surely nobody can forget the creepy old man…or was that the sequel?)

From that moment on I was convinced that the thing which made things fall to earth with a bang was really poltergeist children mucking about at my expense. This was fun for about one day, but quickly became terrifying to a small boy. Soon I was afraid of dropping anything, fearing a poltergeist would attack–