FAMILY MATTERS by Jude Dobson

This time last year there was a worldwide Left-handers' Day. Not sure what sort of press it got (maybe none) because I can find no sign of such an event for 2010. However, it's an interesting subject, so I thought I'd talk lefties this week, given about 13 per cent of the population are "in their right minds". Biology reminder: the right side of your brain controls the left side of your body.
Our youngest child is left-handed. From a very early age left was her favoured side. Thankfully, these days, we are enlightened enough to know not to try to change the way a wee brain is wired in that regard but, as we know, in generations past it was a different story. I do feel sorry for all those poor wee mites who were forced to use their right hand by the teachers of the day.
Mind you, it must have been pretty hard for left-handers to write with a fountain pen, smudging the ink as they went along. Hence the curled up hand thing I recall kids in my class doing, to avoid making a mess.
Things have changed. The free world is now ruled by left-handers. Barack Obama and David Cameron, apparently, are lefties. America's Oval Office must be set up with lefties in mind because the place seems to attract them, with Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush, and Bill Clinton all left-handed. They beat their left-handed opposition to get there, too, in the form of John McCain, Ross Perot and Bob Dole. Russia's Mikhail Gorbachev, I think, is another lefty - and not just in his politics.
Even Presidents must get annoyed with the right-handed world. It's not something you really give too much thought to until you have to cope with it. I saw my little person struggle awfully with scissors as a preschooler and was grateful kindy provided left-handed scissors to ease her frustration. I promptly bought some for home.
A quick look on a left-handers' shop website makes me realise you can go a long way left. While the need for things like scissors, pens and cutlery is understandable, there are some rather unusual items, it seems, to a righty like me, in the form of clocks that spin the time anti-clockwise, and diaries that open backwards. There is left-handed sports and musical equipment, too.
My lovely lefty picked up a hockey stick the other day and hit it round the wrong way for an entire 20 minutes before declaring she would definitely like to play hockey when she is older. So I'll be looking for a left-handed hockey stick in a few years.
I should have told the swimming teacher early on that my daughter was left-handed because she found nailing the breathing on the right thing very hard until I mentioned it one day. Bingo! It all clicked into place as soon as she breathed on the other side.
There is, apparently, a genetic link, but I think we're a bit lucky since the chance of two right-handers having a left-handed child is reported to be only 9 per cent. Still, there are a few lefties on both sides of our family so there must be some dormant lefty genes floating about.
Left-handers, it's said, are known to be eloquent, intelligent and creative. One in four Apollo astronauts and four of the original five Mac creators were left-handers. Then there's Leonardo Da Vinci, Lewis Carroll, Bob Dylan, Charlie Chaplin, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein to name a few. I'm not sure if Michelangelo was a lefty, but the Sistine Chapel shows he chose to paint Adam holding out his left hand to God.
If you are a lefty, you're in fine company. Well done for coping in a right-handed world. At times it must be super frustrating. But let yourself fly with all that talent you have because you lefties are alright!