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Black-Eyed Kids

Not a tale about BEK’s, but yesterday I was chatting with my neighbour. She’s a retired nurse and was one of the nurse’s that nursed Myra Hindley on her deathbed back in 2002.

What was she like I asked, mostly unresponsive was her reply “but when she did open her eyes, I’ve never seen such an evil and coal black pair of eyes in my life, full of hatred and she would stare at me with sheer malevolence”

That must have been awful for you I said, it was she replied but as a nurse you cant pick and choose who you treat.

Then she seemed to get a little bit upset, so I changed the topic in conversation.
 
Interesting to note that black-eyed kids are no longer 'trending'. I've always wondered if they weren't inspired by those Dr Who aliens who manifested as WW2 children wearing gas masks who knocked on doors asking to be let in, one of the better episodes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empty_Child


There are some real parallels with the big empty eyes and of course knocking on doors and asking to come in. Moreover, bad things will apparently happen if you let them in, This was first broadcast in 2005 and I know got broadcast in the US at some point, too.
 
Paul_Exeter said:
Interesting to note that black-eyed kids are no longer 'trending'. I've always wondered if they weren't inspired by those Dr Who aliens who manifested as WW2 children wearing gas masks who knocked on doors asking to be let in, one of the better episodes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empty_Child


There are some real parallels with the big empty eyes and of course knocking on doors and asking to come in. Moreover, bad things will apparently happen if you let them in, This was first broadcast in 2005 and I know got broadcast in the US at some point, too.
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However, the earlier accounts on this thread predate that by 4 years, although they have an urban legend feel to them. I'll also use this post to gripe about the use of the "urban legend" phrase in modern news reporting - some journalist will describe something unusual in the countryside, then call it an "urban legend" - well, no, it's the countryside, not urban at all - try "folklore", doesn't sound as cool though, does it...
 
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Paul_Exeter said:
Interesting to note that black-eyed kids are no longer 'trending'. I've always wondered if they weren't inspired by those Dr Who aliens who manifested as WW2 children wearing gas masks who knocked on doors asking to be let in, one of the better episodes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empty_Child


There are some real parallels with the big empty eyes and of course knocking on doors and asking to come in. Moreover, bad things will apparently happen if you let them in, This was first broadcast in 2005 and I know got broadcast in the US at some point, too.
Click to expand...
More likely that Stephen Moffat was inspired to write The Empty Child at least in part by the stories of BEK.
 
I really thought I'd addressed this issue before, but, looking back over this thread I can't find my post. Possibly it was on some other post - so apologies if I'm repeating myself here....

A few years back I came across a very interesting blogpost called, I think, I Was A Black Eyed Kid (or maybe even I Was A Teenage Black-Eyed Kid). This had a take on the phenomenon that I have not seen aired elsewhere with the same depth. The trouble is, I haven't been able to find the post again and don't recall where it was posted - but trust me it does exist (or did exist).

So I'll try to summarise his main points, but it won't have the detail that he was able to offer.

Essentially trhere is an unnamed youth culture out there which takes its inspiration from Anime comics, cosplay and maybe something like Emo. It is mostly concerned with dress rather than music. The devotees of it like to dress up in the apparel of their heroes - and this usually involves Victorian style garb.

Its followers are `tweenies` more than teens - that is of the 12/13/14 year old age group, rather than older. (Wearing my teacher's hat, I can confirm that Anime has a lot of hold over many kids of this age bracket).

Their drug of choice is called, as far as I can remember, Cherrybombs (yeah, just like the poster). This is an amphetamine based stimulant which has the side-effect of dilating one's pupils. Also it flattens emotional expressiveness and makes one want to go to the toilet.

(Can you see where this is going already?)

Another important aspect of it is that it is a middle-class subculture. Nowadays this means that most of its adherents live in semi-rural and rural type areas (you don't often hear of Black Eyed Kid encounters in central Wolverhampton, do you?)

This subculture has been going from at least the early noughties, but very few people over the age of thirty know anything about it.

So taking all that into account: one could easily envisage a situation where a group of very young looking kids, dressed in apparently archaic clothing, are wandering around in a semi-rural location complete with dilated pupils. They may stop at houses and, with a jittery manner and monotone style of speech, may ask to enter the home (to access the bathroom).

As far as I'm concerned, this information puts the who;le thing to bed.
 
brownmane said:
@Zeke Newbold, I found this link that sounds like what you are referring to:

http://www.bizarrejournal.com/2013/04/black-eyed-children-finally-explained.html?m=
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No I don't think that is it, actually. The piece I'm thinking of was definitely titles something like `I Was a (Teenage) Black Eyed Kid` and its format was that of an article and not an i nterview.

However, the above post does tally with - and seem to confirm all the same points.

Good find, Brownmane - thank you!
 
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