I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous……………………….

While I am left handed, and left footed, that is not the whole story. From a sport and dancing point of view I have two left feet. As for hands I am ambidextrous, as a kid I would sit and do one drawing with the left hand and one with the right, at the same time. I normally write left handed, and file and hacksaw left handed. But if get tired I just swap over and file or hacksaw right handed. I normally fly right handed, as that is the way the controls are set out. The throttle, flaps, airbrakes and so on are normally on the left, so you fly the aeroplane right handed. However, the Auster I used to own had a single, central throttle, so to use that during take off and landing you had to fly left handed. I never found it a problem.

Overall I suppose I haven't really had many issues. The biggest issue was sport. When I was at primary school we had a demonstration of how to hold and use a cricket bat, right handed of course. I said I was left handed and got the withering reply that I'd just have to sort it out for myself. May be that sowed the seed of my contempt for organised sport.

My father was also left handed, and like Martin, he was rapped over the knuckles to force him to write right handed. However, my grandmother went down to the school and laid the law down, saying if he wanted to use his left hand then that was what he was going to do. Quite an unusual attitude in the early 1930s

Andrew

I too am a lefty, it has never hindered me in anything, I play guitar the way most people consider right handed although I maintain they are wrong, the left hand is doing all the clever stuff fretting the neck whereas the right is performing a relatively repetitive strum or picking motion so as they say, go figure. Everything else I have simply adapted to, scissors no problem, I used to fly right handed, play golf right handed (badly I might add), when in the RAF I shot right handed simply because many of the weapons I used could not be fired left handed. I do now use a lefty shotgun but that is probably more to do with my left eye being the more dominant after a cornea graft, still waiting to get the right one fixed.

Never had a problem with machines except circular saws which are just badly designed for a lefty in most cases. Power drills just naturally fall to my right hand, I learned to write with my right hand after an accident as a youngster left me with my left arm in plaster for several months. Normally write lefty now but can still swap if need be.If I have one peculiarity it is that when using screwdrivers, I tighten with my right and loosen with my left, I can do the reverse but it feels slightly odd!

.

Clumsy ??

Generally I'm right handed but I can do many things with either right or left. Racket games and fittings nuts on bolts for an example. But generally these days I'm just kack handed!

John

I'm pure left handed as regards writing, but am ambidextrous for everything else usually favouring my right for most other things bats, shooting etc but can swop with no problem to the left if I want or need to. My pet hate is Banks, Post Offices etc that always have fixed pens on chains on the right side that keggies can't use without performing contorsions.

I agree with others that we just have to get on with things. When something new and 'handed' comes along, such as an air rifle, we must try to use it from the beginning as a right-hander.

I also am surprised that electric hand drills are made in only the one version.

It is possible to buy scissors with the handles moulded for lefties.

There is, or used to be, a 'left-handed shop' in London.

I wonder how many of us use the pc mouse in the left hand.

A good friend is cacky handed. When I service his PC's I always notice that his computer mouse is upside down.

I offered to re-program the rodent, but he would not have a bar of it – he's comfortable with it as it is.

Biggest problem is finding a l/h rifle for the sinister people. They can shoot too (unless they are village idiots).

* Danny M *

.

[hopefully] the manufacturer does more than just change the mouldings!

Properly engineered; left-handed scissors should have the blades hinged appropriately, so that the pressure of the thumb biases them towards each other. … The blades of Scissors used in the 'wrong' hand will be biased apart, and therefore will not cut so effectively.

MichaelG.

Watch the movies, see how many people using a rifle hold and fire it left handed(maybe someone turned the film inside out)There used to be a left hand shop in Christchurch NZ, the scissors they sold had the blades on the opposite side.

I found that when I took up wood turning, I had little difficulty in using either hand when using chisels, and scrapers. I'm right handed.

Some of you may have heard of Bob Charles, left handed NZ golfer, he's right handed in everything else, he only became a LH golfer because the only clubs that were around home were a set of LH ones.

Ian S C

I use the PC mouse right-handed. I have a pair of left handed scissors, but I find them difficult to use.

Not only is my brain wired upside down but back to front and left to right too. That's probably why I find visual ideas and concepts very easy, but languages are a complete blank. I had enough trouble with English, let alone anything else.

Andrew

Andrew,

I do not know which way i am wired but I can "spin" visual images in my brain to get the same effect as rotating on the PC screen. Ambidextrous with tools, write right handed, shoot right hand with left eye.