ON BEING SINISTER

Grandmother was, and suffered tremendously in her early years for being so. As far as I know, nobody else in the wider family was – but I AM!

Allow me to explain – I am not talking ‘evil’, merely being left-handed. Grandmother, when she was at school, had her left hand tied behind her back, forcing her to use her right hand. “A mark of the devil” said her teachers. Things were slightly more civilised when I went to school; for “lefties” writing is a problem and I can remember being told that my work was not so much “writing” as the “wanderings of a drunken spider across the page”.

Right-handers take so much for granted; an example is cutting bread. When I am watched doing this chore, I hear people say “Oh! You’re left-handed”. It’s the sad tone in their voice that annoys me – it’s the one they use for ageing relatives who are slowly losing their faculties and are regarded as being “one sandwich short of a good picnic”.

But we “lefties” have sound attributes; indigenous peoples of the Andes consider that left-handers possess special spiritual abilities including magic and healing.  Left-handed people as a group have historically produced an above-average quota of high-achievers; our brains are structured differently in a way that increases our range of abilities. Also, the genes that determine left-handedness also govern the development of the language centres of the brain. Not bad at all. But we do have our faults; we are considered clumsy, but that’s because we live in a right-handed world; we are also thought to be more susceptible to alcoholism (I haven’t noticed any symptoms – yet). We’re not sinister, merely a “different” 10%.

Left-handers - play the game to your strengths and let the right-handed world sit up and take notice of us!


Until next time (and typing with both hands),

Peripatetic Scribe