Please tell of your experience of being a leftie, good or bad.
For me it was Catholic school education. According to the nuns I was the devils child. They stood over me and constantly put my pencil / spoon in my right hand.
My mother's from a time when conformity was all. She was whacked into submission by teachers re left handedness and is now able to use both hands for most tasks.
Strange sh1t that being left handed was seen as scary stuff throughout depression, war and generally difficult times.
Left- handers are dangerous, as any man whose wife has always written right handed, as ordered by teachers, and learned to do things right handed, soon discovers when he ducks to avoid her right but gets caught by a left hook worthy of Henry Cooper ! I do not name any such man but I do know one very well !
My Mum was made to write with her right hand too. I'm a lefty, but find I can do lots of things with both or either hand. Wouldn't say I was ambidextrous as I find it difficult to write with right hand.
I was told at college that if you wanted to work in a bank it was better to be right handed for counting the bank notes. I suppose you could see the numbers as you thumbed through the notes ...
My father was made to use his right hand and he developed a stutter. My teachers were given firm instructions that I was left handed and would be allowed to stay that way - luckily they obeyed. Scissors tend to be the worst thing as they are angled for right handers. And I always knew in my last job when someone had used my computer as the mouse was always moved.
Mrs Flop has often wondered out loud whether I would be eligible for a blue badge because of my disability!
The good news is that, apparently, left handers are generally more intelligent than right handers, the bad news, again apparently, is that we die younger than right handers.
I was incredibly lucky when I was about 8 years old a teacher saw I was struggling to master a good hand.. and asked my mother to buy me a fountain pen with an italic nib for left handers... within weeks I could write really nicely while my classmates were struggling with dipping pens and inkwells.
I do most things with either hand writing and knitting I am left handed except if I am on the phone and need to take a message if I don't think about it and pick up a pen in my right hand I can manage just fine...until I realise then I have to swap. Made learning to type quite hard as both hands go for the centre keys but its really useful when doingdiy as Ican swap hands to get into difficult corners. I also never developed a backhand in racquet games just do a quick transfer between hands so everything is on a forehand... my teacher used to tear her hair out... probably why I was useless at it..
My sister is left-handed and never had any problems learning to write once teachers realised she was left-handed. The only difficulty I remember was when we went on a family trip to Germany and we had to sign in and out of the hotel swimming pool and the woman on the gate refused to let her sign with her left hand! So she just ended up with a squiggle with her right hand. Very strange.
Like erin I am naturally right handed but have lost a lot of the strength in my right hand due to illness and now can produce a semi-legible with either hand. A good friend of mine who I've known since infants school is still a "leftie" despite all the efforts of a lot of teachers. he just refused to change no matter what they did.