My Nan used to babysit for Michael Parkinson
....so that's three degrees of separation from most of the people of the late twentieth century it was ever worthwhile to meet. This would have been sometime in the 1940s I think, well before he was wearing brown suits on prime-time TV

As for me, my own recollections of babysitters are varied - one was a son of my Mum's friend who ran a video shop, so at age six or seven I got to see various Schwarzenegger titles (Red Heat and Commando being among those I remember) as well as a ton of other 1980s action flicks - the occasional sex scene was always fast-forwarded, but not the explosions and war. Later on, there was one fabulously attractive 17-year old who used to tell us about her newly-discovered love of nightclubbing and engage in the odd pillow fight. Once I hit the age of about 13 or 14, however, we were pretty much left to babysit for ourselves (including for a whole week whilst my Mum spent the £600-odd she'd recently won on the bingo on a holiday in Tenerife with her boyf).

Now I'm a teacher, which is, more or less, only a pedestal or two above babysitting, except if I were to spend my classes screening the latest gory action movies I wouldn't expect to be in a job for long, even if the kids might enjoy that more than learning English
(Katabatic wasn't, and will never be on, Fri 29 Oct 2010, 1:14, 3 replies)

What about showing "Threads"
I remember watching that at school - several parents complained as their kids were having nightmares and crying alot.

I thought it was a satire.
( Another_tragic_case wished he hadn't eaten all the cake, Fri 29 Oct 2010, 7:52, closed)

chewing through her umbilical cord will haunt me for life

( Bamboo Steamer, Fri 29 Oct 2010, 10:17, closed)

Everyone should see Threads.
Even if it still gives me nightmares. One of the very few truly properly scary things I've ever seen.
(Dermot O'Logical, Fri 29 Oct 2010, 15:27, closed)