Author Topic: International Left Handers Day!  (Read 4853 times)

Offline Barbara.H

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Re: International Left Handers Day!
« Reply #9 on: Tuesday 14 August 18 00:39 BST (UK) »
When I was at art college there were seven lefties, including me, in our set of 14, a higher proportion that you'd normally expect.
I think the artistic lefty idea came from the theory that left-handers were right-brain dominant, and the right side of the brain deals with creative thinking - don't know if this is good science or waffle though!

 :) Barbara

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Offline majm

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Re: International Left Handers Day!
« Reply #10 on: Tuesday 14 August 18 00:45 BST (UK) »
I think NSW stopped caning children to make then write right handed in around 1960s.   I learnt to knit by sitting facing one of my Grans.... otherwise I too would have been clumsy with the needles.
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Both my parents were 'Molly dukes'.  I am right sided, but anything I learnt by copying them I did left-handed.  Took mum a while to work out why I looked clumsy when ironing.  Try other hand she said.  Now I can use both hands in most activities, just swap when arm becomes tired.  I am sure most natural left handers are the same.
They were born in Victoria and South Australia in the 1910's and 1920' and made to write with their right hand too majm.
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Offline jaybelnz

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Re: International Left Handers Day!
« Reply #11 on: Tuesday 14 August 18 01:31 BST (UK) »
When I was at primary school in the 1950's - left handed children were still being made to write with their right hands!  I can recall some of the kids in my class having their left hands tied behind their backs during writing, when using bats at sports time, and at art and drawing lessons. Even eating their lunch.  Shocking!!

One girl even had a really bad fall when she slipped over playing tennis using her left hand, while her right hand was tied behind her back!  She hit her head on the ground was knocked out, and to be taken off in an ambulance with a severe concussion!  So things were pretty tough for lefties! 

After that, our school allowed left handed people to use their left hands, I don't know about other schools though.  I read somewhere that the Catholic Schools were even stronger with kids not using their left hands!

Interesting read here -

 https://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11620969
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Offline Rena

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Re: International Left Handers Day!
« Reply #12 on: Tuesday 14 August 18 02:46 BST (UK) »
One thing about being left handed is you quickly learn to keep your elbow tucked into your side when eating at the dining table  ;D

My late father was a cack hander and had to write with his right hand - he wrote beautifully with both hands -  but I've never been forced to use my right hand and I started school in the 1940s.  I knit as though I were a right hander and use standard scissors with my right hand.  I was an average art student at school, physics being my favourite subject.   

I have no idea whether my father's seven siblings were left or right handed.  My children are right handed and one is an artist. Only one of my nephews (a chemistry teacher) and one grandson is left handed.
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Offline Gadget

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Re: International Left Handers Day!
« Reply #13 on: Tuesday 14 August 18 07:57 BST (UK) »
There were quite a few left handers amongst my paternal cousins.

I started school sometime in 1949 - when I was 4 - and no one forced me to use my right hand until I was about 7. Then the needlework teacher started rapping me over the knuckles. Mum soon sorted it. She remembered that that teacher, who had attended the same school as her,  had been originally  left handed and forced to use her right hand.

I'm sure I read somewhere that the left/right brain theory had been disproved but I can't remember where I read it.

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Online BumbleB

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Re: International Left Handers Day!
« Reply #14 on: Tuesday 14 August 18 08:07 BST (UK) »
Luckily I was never made to use my right hand, at school or elsewhere.  Crafts, I sometimes have trouble with - knitting, that's OK, but when I tried crochet I had problems, and a very kind person turned round all the patterns for basket-weaving for me when I tried that.  I use a knife and fork "normally" but turn spoon and fork round, and I carve left-handed.  Scissors in the left hand, so I damage most of the pairs that I have.  I did have a spell of having to use my right hand, following a fall (doing the Twist at a Cycling Club dinner) when I broke my left wrist.  :o
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Offline Rhododendron

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Re: International Left Handers Day!
« Reply #15 on: Tuesday 14 August 18 08:11 BST (UK) »
Teetotal wondered how many left-handers were on here.  Well you can add me to that list!  And as I was brought up in the N.East I was often called a cack-hander!

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Offline seahall

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Re: International Left Handers Day!
« Reply #17 on: Tuesday 14 August 18 08:41 BST (UK) »
I was the only left hander out of 11 children.

Although I write with my left hand a do a lot of things with my right.

I make cards (using both hands), cross-stitch, crochet, knit, all left handed.

I remember using a mirror to learn how to crochet the right way lol.

I remember lots of rapping with a ruler too.

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