Britain’s weirdest phobias include a fear of peas and kneecaps.

A terror of frozen peas, a fear of barns and a dread of kneecaps have emerged as some of Britain’s most unusual phobias. While spiders and heights are common sources of anxiety, many people’s lives are blighted by phobias of seemingly innocuous objects.
David Allison, a therapist based at Addenbrooke’s hospital, in Cambridge, was filmed treating some of the worst sufferers in an ITV1 documentary to be shown next week. They included Sue Williams, 37, from Dudley in the West Midlands, who is so terrified of knees that she has not touched her own for 16 years and cannot say “kneecap” without bursting into tears.
“I don’t like my own. I can’t touch them. I certainly can’t touch anyone else’s,” she said. “I know it’s strange. People tease me about it and they have got every right to. But I think I’m the normal one and everyone else is weird.”
Until her therapy sessions, Mrs Williams was unable to wash her knees in the bath and could not look at her husband’s knees. Mr Allison’s treatment involved showing her photographs of knees, which reduced her to sobs. In the final session, he wore a pair of shorts and encouraged her to look at his kneecaps until the feelings of terror subsided.
Louise Arnold, from Gloucester, has a pea phobia which means she cannot walk down the frozen food aisle of a supermarket. Explaining her dislike of peas, she said: “They tend to just look at me – ganging up on me. All the hairs on the back of my neck go up. I have to know where they are in the supermarket before I go in. It’s just controlling my life now. I would like to be a dinner lady at my daughter’s school, but I’m not even able to be in the same room as someone eating them.”
Other sufferers in the programme included Kim Crosby, from Cambridge, who is terrified of barns. “It’s very hampering in the summertime because I would like to drive around with the roof of my car down, but then there is nothing to protect me.”
Mr Allison treated another patient, Earleen Taylor, who is so frightened of frogs that she sprints from her car to her front door in case one is lurking in the garden. Miss Taylor, of Sutton, Surrey, said: “I have a sixth sense for frogs. When it has been raining, I‘m on red alert. I start to hyperventilate, and am gripped by fear.”
Tea bags, tree roots and midgets are other terrors discussed in Britain’s Weirdest Phobias, broadcast on Tuesday at 8pm.