Left-handed trivia

• The artist, Landseer, could draw two different pictures simultaneously with his left and right hands.

• If you touch type, the word ‘stewardesses’ is typed using your left hand only.

• Cats tend to use their left paw more than their right.

• The Kerr family of Scotland had an unusually high number of left handers. They even built their castle with a staircase that spiralled the other way so they could attack with their sword in their left hands. Today, the Scottish term, kerry-fisted, means left handed.

• Tools found from Stone Age times were sharpened equally for left and right handed use. Man only developed a preference for right-handedness during the Bronze Age.

• The American term for left handers, ‘southpaw’, was coined to describe left-handed baseball pitchers. It’s now also used to refer to left-handed boxers.

• Scouts shake with their left hand, not their right.

• Lefthanders International was founded in 1975 and has 25,000 members.

• Queen Victoria, King George VI and Prince William were, or are, all left handed. Both Victoria and George VI were forced to become right handed.

• Left handers are better at reading mirror-writing than right handers.

• It’s rare for identical twins to both be left handed. If one is a lefty, the other will usually be right handed.

• Only 1% of people are truly ambidextrous.

• There is a small town in West Virginia called Left Hand.

• In ancient Egypt, it was good luck to enter a house with your left foot.

• Four of the 12 astronauts who walked on the moon were left handed. On average, 10% of people are left handed but 33.3% of the moon walkers were.

• Nearly all the characters in the Muppets were left handed.

• Left handers excel at fencing. This is mainly due to the fact that left handers are superior at judging distance and at reacting faster. Half of the world’s top fencers are left handers.

• Thanks to our heightened spatial awareness, left handers are also better at games such as tennis, badminton and squash. In fact, 40% of world’s top tennis players are left handed.

• There are more left-handed golfers in New Zealand, per head of population, than anywhere else in the world.

How do you know if you are left or right handed?

Now that sounds like a fairly easy question to answer. But what does mark us out as a left or right hander? My niece is 'left handed' because that's the hand she uses for writing. But in every other respect she is right handed.

And a friend told me that he throws "a ball with my left hand but kick a ball with my right foot. I bat in cricket or swing a club in golf right handed! I write with my left, yet if someone challenged me to an arm wrestle I would instinctively proffer my right".

They aren't ambidextrous, because that would mean they could do everything with both hands equally well. Are they a label that has yet to be given? Bi-handed?

I use my left hand for everything except for putting moisturiser/sun lotion on. Why that sole task? I think it's because I hold the bottle or tube in my left hand and squeeze out the sun cream into my right hand.

You can check which is your dominant hand by trying this easy test, called: How left handed are you?

Useful fact: gorillas are left handed and most cats are left pawed.