Bob Fischer reveals his Scarred For Life Top 10

1. Threads (BBC, 1984): Sheffield is nuked. The bleakest, most desolate piece of television ever, broadcast at the height of Cold War paranoia, sees poor Reece Dinsdale in a post-apocalyptic world awash with radiation poisoning.

2. Doctor Who (BBC, 1963 now): The grandaddy. For 56 years, British children have cowered in horror from Daleks, Cybermen, Sea Devils and - for us 1970s kids - Tom Baker’s terrifying stare in that iconic title sequence.

3. Sapphire and Steel (ITV, 1979-82): Bewildering, surreal, eerie... Joanna Lumley and David McCallum face a scary baddie with a completely blank face, and there’s also a truly terrifying story set in a haunted railway station. At 7pm, naturally.

4. Day of the Triffids (BBC, 1981): Part science fiction, part dystopia, all horror as a blind population comes under attack from deadly plant life. So scary that the horror film 28 Days Later started with an homage to it.

5. Shadows (ITV, 1975-78):

This obscure supernatural anthology series for children was brilliant, literate and genuinely creepy, and Series Two was blessed with the scariest title sequence ever, complete with ghostly rocking chair. Shudder.

6. Worzel Gummidge (ITV, 1979-81):

Jon Pertwee is the walking scarecrow who haunts the village of Scatterbrook, changing his heads depending on his mood. It was clearly intended to be cuddly and whimsical, but it ... wasn’t.

7. Look And Read: Into the Dragon’s Eye (BBC, 1989):

School literacy classes watched in horror this tale of Charn, the “evil one”... a skullfaced monstrosity who liquefied people with blasts of lightning from his bony fingers.

8. Space 1999 (ITV, 1975-77): Remember the horrifying monster with writhing tentacles, or the man who suddenly aged to death? Space 1999 had many horrors, including Christopher Lee in full glam-rock make-up.

9. Chocky (ITV, 1984):

John Wyndham’s story of a child possessed by an alien intelligence was disturbing enough, but Chocky was also blessed with a scary title sequence that began with a truly blood-curdling scream!

10. Escape Into Night (ITV, 1972): Bed-ridden

Marianne’s dreams take on a surreal and frightening life of their own. Trapped in a house in a featureless landscape, she sees the monsters outside edging closer and closer...