Remember the Child Catcher?

I only felt a little better about this character when I discovered that Roald Dahl was his creator. He was a film addition to the Ian Fleming book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and he terrified me. It wasn't just the elongated nose and weedy hair. It was his whole unseemly being--no child should be near the fellow. He'd stop me breathing, and I'd bury my head in my hands.