Public information films were particularly gruesome in the 1970s. You can embark on a chilling nostalgia trip  by watching them all on YouTube, recalling The Spirit of Dark Water, the boy who climbs the pylons to retrieve his kite and an especially graphic one called The Finishing Line, about the dangers of playing on the railways.

The Finishing Line was shown in schools in the early 80s but was soon withdrawn as it was frightening the poor little labs, but isn’t that the point of these films? If facts and cold logic can’t get through to young brains then scare them instead. When their little feet itch to go scampering on the tracks they might not care that bla bla bla per cent are killed by trains but they’ll certainly remember the horrible scenes from that film. It imagines a school sports day where ever game is played on the local train tracks. Children in vests and shorts play chicken on the line, being cheered on by pals and with teacher keeping the score. One by one, they die horribly, with the final game being the most terrifying: the remaining children have to race through a black, echoing tunnel and, as we watch the little white vests and legs go jogging into the gloom, a train approaches and thunders in behind them. The film ends with the teachers and school nurses carrying bloodied bodies out of then tunnel. Although I was too young to see the film in school, I’d bet no child went skipping out of the classroom and right onto a rail line.

But such films have been withdrawn as being too frightening. I have no idea if schools still show public information films. Maybe it’s a quaint notion and has fallen out of fashion. Even so, if I ever have a child I’ll be plonking it down in front of YouTube to watch these films. I can’t imagine anything else as effective on young minds as horror, carefully packaged into a short film for TV.

And in watching Escape From ISIS (C4) I kept thinking of those frivolous, foolish girls who run off to Syria. From what’s reported in the media – I can’t claim to know anything first-hand, obviously – they seem to think joining ISIS is a romantic escapade, that they’ll be married to a warrior and serve some noble cause. The media even participate in this idea with the language they utilise, with words like “flee” and jihadi bride”, both of which have romantic connotations. If only these girls (and the boys and the adults) who live sheltered, neat suburban lives in privileged Britain could be made to watch Escape From ISIS their opinions might be changed. Maybe the romantic notions of these daft prospective “brides” would wilt somewhat if they saw their brave warriors sitting on sagging sofas in a grotty internet café, giggling and shoving one another as they discussed how many slave girls they’ll buy, teasing their friends as to whether they can “handle her”? The hidden camera which captured this footage of the brave ISIS heroes showed them as absurd, stunted boy-men, desperately trying to sprout beards, and wrapping themselves in robes, balaclavas and black flags, to mask their inferiority, hiding behind a vile ideology and a big gun.

This programme was about the life of women under ISIS, whose march across Iraq and Syria has brought 4 million women under their control. Walking down the street of an ISIS-held town is dangerous for a woman; they can be arrested for raising their voice or wfor wearing perfume and, in a horrible twist, they’ve formed an all-female police force to stalk the streets and monitor female behaviour. Strange that a woman may not wear a soft floral scent, but she may sling a rifle over her black-robed shoulder and lash a “sister”. These are odd notions of female gentility and meekness.

Of course, men are the ones to be feared. A woman might lash you, but men can rape, enslave and murder, and they can twist Islam to justify it. In one of the most shocking moments, we see stolen footage of a woman being stoned to death. She has a rope tied round her waist and she is pulled across the stony ground like a dog, then pushed into a hole where the men, including her own father, begin to throw rocks. Mercifully, the footage is blurred at this point, but your imagination makes that futile.

All of the footage and photos we see inthis film have been taken by an underground cell who’re active within ISIS and trying to rescue the many kidnapped women, and return them to their homes outside this “Islamic utopia”. For the women forced into ISIS, to be gang-raped, beaten and sold, their only hope is this small clutch of activists who risk their lives to try and smuggle them out, and get them home. Until that moment, which might never come, some women say “we were coming up with ways to kill ourselves”. The noble ISIS warriors, fearful of losing a good deal at the slave market, or a soft body to rape each day, say they if any women attempt suicide, and fail, they’ll be fed to the dogs.

It all comes down to propaganda: ISIS send out films and photos to show their so-called “Islamic utopia”, whilst the activists gather footage of their own, which some will just dismiss as anti-ISIS propaganda.

Maybe it is. But maybe the public information films were propaganda too, as they used well-chosen horrors to stop us going into reservoirs or train tracks, but I’d say those films kept thousands of children safe. Maybe if this was shown in schools it’d keep yet more of them safe.