To be annoyed with Call the Midwife

[BlueThursday]

I've been rewatching from the start and of all the things to be annoyed about it’s Dr Turner writing left handed 🤣

Clearly as I know nothing about medicine or midwifery they could be showing all sorts that’s wrong and I’d have no clue but this is bugging me.

I think it’s time for a cuppa!

Extrapolating here, but if Dr T went to private school and his father was a medic like most of the Drs in that era he may not have endured the same attitudes as others.

My granddad was born in 1912 and he was left handed. He had the most fancy and neat cursive handwriting I have ever seen.

He might write left-handed, but it's not that he doesn't put any effort in...

30. Stephen McGann is left-handed and that makes some procedures difficult for him to replicate as medical tools are made for right-handed people, so he practises again and again using his “wrong” hand. For really complex procedures, Terri Coates’s paediatrician husband puts on a mask and plays Dr Turner to get the details right for the camera

(We're watching it from the beginning too OP!)

I'm left handed and so was my brother (born 76 and 78) and there was never any bother about us being left handed.

I remember my mum telling me that my aunt (born 1927) was forced to write with her right hand. I have no idea if she still does, I will ask her next time I talk to her, if I remember!

My dad was born in 1926 and very much had it thrashed out of him at school. His handwriting was appalling as a consequence.
When I started school in 1974 the school was clearly unhappy with me being left-handed, but didn’t actually stop it. Where things got weird was with school dinners: the headmaster thought I was being naughty holding a spoon in my left hand and forced me to eat with the infant kids, even when I was 11 - basically trying to humiliate me into changing hands, which I literally couldn’t do.
So yes, I do think it’s a little strange that Dr Turner was allowed to write with his left hand, but overall I find him such an annoying character that it’s the least of my issues whenever he’s on the screen. It would be interesting to actually turn it into a plotline though…

Think children were sometimes ‘encouraged’ to use their right hand by either having to sit on their left hand or having their left arm tied to their body so couldn’t use their left hand

If anyone has ever read 'She's Leaving Home' by Edwina Currie, based on the life of her own family, there's quite a harrowing account of an apprentice tailor who was left handed having his left hand tied behind his back until he had learned to use the tailoring tools with his right hand.

My Grandad was left handed and did everything but eat left handed (born in 1909), my mother was born in 1939 - left handed, my brother born in 1971 - left handed. None of them had anything “thrashed out” of them!

I was born in '68 and wasn't allowed to use my left hand at school.
I was taught by nuns in Wales.

As an adult I struggle with knowing my left and right. I can't 'feel' it as I don't really have a dominant hand. I do everything except write with my left hand.

I do remember breaking my left wrist and my teacher at the time wondering what on earth was wrong when my writing went from the usual 8yr olds writing to a toddlers "learning to write" as I'd HAD to swap to my right hand (this was the 90s)

I eat and write with my left hand still, but had to learn everything else right handed as I got older as it's a right-handers world and couldn't find various tools for left handers easily

My dad was born in 1936 and always wrote left-handed. We came from a very deprived area - I'm not sure if that's relevant.

Some of these anecdotes surprise me. DH was born in 1965, had a very middle class upbringing, and never had any issue with being left-handed

My husband plays the guitar right-handedly as he was taught that way, but everything else he does left-handedly.

I think it depended on the school/teacher. My dad is in his 80s and said there was one teacher at his school who used to make horrible comments about left handers, but nobody at his (fairly punitive!) school actually made him write with his right hand.

Interesting comments from other people here. My DF was born in 1947 and he went to a school taught by the Christian Brothers. He was certainly thrashed for a lot of things but interestingly being left handed wasn’t one of them.

I've relatives born in 50s and 60s who recall teachers tying the left hand up behind the back so that they couldn't use it. Likewise being humiliated for eating with the knife in the left hand by a dinner lady standing next to them, ringing a handbell and saying, "Children look. Somebody who doesn't know how to eat in a civilised way."

That said, these were largely religious schools where left handedness was regarded with the religious overtone of being sinister and carrying a whiff of Satan.

My nursery teacher in 2000 asked my mum if she should encourage me to use my right hand instead! Thankfully she declined. My grandfather went to school in the 30s and remembered his left hand being tied behind his back

My grandad (who is mid 90s) is left handed. They tried to thrash it out of him but my formidable great grandmother said if they thrashed him, SHE would go around and thrash the offending teacher. She wasn’t a woman to be messed around with 😬

My husband was born in 1953 and is left handed, he was never made to use his right hand. It only bugs me when he rearranges my desk to suit him! (It's an ongoing joke with us)

My dad was born in 1932 and he was left handed. No one tried to thrash it out of him as far as I'm aware.

I was born in ‘95 and was scolded all the time in primary school for trying to write and draw with my left hand, so I switched to my right hand permanently. Then I spent my last two years there being punished for having awful handwriting😂

I'm 66, my DH was a left hander, I went to school with several lefties, none was made to use their right hand. In respect of writing, I can remember lots of trying of different pens so that they could feel comfortable writing. I think it very much depended on the school.

But sometimes the adult goes back to what suits even after, my grandad did.

From those I know, they would have continued to write with their right hand (as they wouldn't have practiced with their left) but used their left hand as the dominant hand for other tasks - digging with a spade, ironing, tennis etc

A really born in mid 20’s had their left hand tied to their chair. They went on to be a successful sportsperson/author of sorts. Using their left hand, but never forgave or forgot.