Being Left Handed

I am, and always have been, proud of my lefthandedness. "lefthanded" or some variation of it is my username on dozens of websites.

I have never considered it to be a handicap - in fact in my chosen profession (I was a computer programmer/analyst/lecturer) being lefthanded was a positive advantage. In the 1990s when I worked on a Dept of Trade & Industry project to register company directors I was one of a team of 9, and 5 of us were lefthanded. Very much at odds, statistically speaking, with the population at large.

At school in the 1950s/1960s I was never forced or even encouraged to use my right hand - lefthandedness was simply accepted. Although I do remember one particularly uncaring teacher (her name was Miss Cochrane and she wore Marje Proops style "devil's eyebrow" glasses) who taught the entire class left and right by repeating the mantra "Your RIGHT hand is the hand that you WRITE with". Myself and the three other lefthanders in the class grew up terminally confused, and I still get confused now often saying right when I mean left, and vice-versa. I'm sure that she never even considered the impact on the lefthanders.

I believe that lefthanders are a bit flamboyant. I was the chap wearing Hawaian Shirts in an office where almost everyone else wore a grey suit (including quite a few of my female colleagues!)

Our not out!

And me! (a leftie)

I apologised to my right-handed neighbour on the communal desk at my new job this week, for "spreading to the left" as I worked, and of course clashing with him. We even knocked out "mouses" together at one time. We are jammed in. Oh, for the days when I had my own proper office desk.

My SonIL is ambidextrous. He is left-handed and right-eyed.

Try putting a toilet roll to your eye as if it is a telescope and see which eye you put it to automatically. Apparently it correlates to handedness.

My Nanna taught me to knit. She was right handed. I am left handed. She sat opposite me, like looking in a mirror, l learnt to knit.

Never had problem knitting did lots when mine were babies and for my first Grandaughter and am left handed!

I am left handed as is my daughter and haver had no problems apart from trying to learn to knit. My daughter had a friend in from primary school and we were discussing knitting. " Oh she said I cannot knit I am handicapped " . She was left handed .

I just brush mushrooms with a soft brush. Never peeled one yet.

I peel the larger open ones with thicker peel. I use those because they have more taste. Not too keen on button mushroms.

So do I !

Elegran, do you really peel mushrooms?

I'm left handed, I write with my left hand and hold a spoon with it but I use my right for cutting with scissors and very strangely, if I'm using a potato peeler which is one that peels towards me I use my right hand but if I use one that you peel away from you, it's my left. I have one son who is left handed and one who is right handed.

I like to think that I might not have been so useless at hockey at school had they had any sticks for left handlers.
I am also miffed that no one taught me to knit left handedly and it is too late to change- it is no wonder that I have to take my hand off the needle and slowly wrap the wool around. I was taught to crochet right handedly but have rebelled and am learning 'properly' although again miffed that books show pictures for right handers. I hate being told 'use a mirror' - right handers wouldn't put up with left handed pictures or demonstrations and being told to use a mirror! I have finally found a book with proper diagrams with the left hand and have hopes.

I found the way of holding cutlery is the natural way for a left hander. I had a spoon only to start with and so the fork went naturally into the left hand and therefore the natural place for the knife was the free hand i.e. The right hand.
I am convinced that the main handicap for a left hander is a right handed mother who seems to think it a problem when it isn't!
Children get so used to it being used as an excuse for being messy. They roll out 'but I am left handed' and when you say 'yes and so...........? They don't have an answer!
My main bugbear was taking the register at school where It would have been much easier to have the names on the right and put the marks against them on the left. Interactive white boards are also difficult because you want to stand in the place that causes the shadow. You don't need to write cheques much now but I have a cheque book tnat starts from the back and has the stubs on the right.

I am right-handed but left-legged. Put on trousers/pants left leg first, and at schools sports used to start the sprint hunkered down with left leg forward, right leg back, high jump scissor style with left leg first over (had to run in from the opposite side of the jump to everyone else - oh how exposed I felt)

Oh, and I peel mushrooms with my left hand.

My DS2 is left handed like my father.While I cannot remember my dad having any problems my son certainly has.
DS is dyslexic but I do not think that is associated with being left handed.He had problems learning to read and write which were due to his dyslexia which was not recognised in primary school.When he did write it was mirror writing and he would often write from right to left across the page and hold his pen or pencil in a claw like grip. Although he now writes normally he still holds his pen like a claw.
He is artistic, always getting top marks for art while at school, but his youngest daughter who is right handed, is artistic too. He has problems using normal scissors, but in his job as a car mechanic can handle tools well.
When he was a child I was told he had extreme left handedness, but his teachers seemed to think this was the cause of his writing problems rather than his dyslexia!.

Right handed, but definitely left leg first. Oddly enough I hold fork in my right hand and knife in my left, and always have done. I have tried reversing it but the left hand couldn't make the journey from plate to mouth. I always thought this was because I AM right handed that I do this. I have never come across anyone else who does this. I'm obviously a bit odd.

I'm right-handed and apply makeup on both eyes with my right hand - I just change its position and angle to wield the mascara brush.

Oh definitely right leg first. I'm such a boring, predictable, stereotypical, right-handed sort of gal

Indinana I too (well, when I bother) put my eye make up on my left eye with my left hand, and the right eye with my right hand!

Now, does this lead us to the trouser/knicker question? Which leg do you put in first? Apparently there is a difference between left & right handers!

(Phoenix toddles off for an early night with her book, imagining lots of Grans acting out putting on imaginary nether garments! )

Really? That's shocking.

When my mother applied for her first job (back in the Dark Ages), the boss who interviewed her reckoned that she wouldn't be suitable because she was left-handed and she (boss) had never seen anyone take Pitman shorthand left-handed. However, she was fair-minded enough to give her a test which my mama passed with flying colours ?? and she got the job. Mum later qualified as a shorthand teacher and could take very accurate dictation at 120 wpm but never achieved her ambition to work in Parliament because it was against Hansard's rules to employ a left-handed person.

My DD is ambidextrous - or amphibious . She writes with her right hand, but can use her left almost equally well if her right one is out of action, and she does most other things with her left hand. All her girlfriends are so jealous watching her put on her eye make-up - none of this awkward hand across the eye nonsense trying to get eye liner on her left eye. She just swaps hands

I use knife and fork the same as right handers but that's it, I do remember when aged five and moving into the big school when we began studies I was told not to write with my left hand, my father stopped this immediately , I was rather puffed up when I heard him say - she is perfect as she is

Although I am right handed, I read a magazine from the back to the front ( not books though, for obvious reasons!