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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be annoyed with Call the Midwife

133 replies

BlueThursday · 03/12/2022 10:38

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!

OP posts:
toomuchlaundry · 03/12/2022 12:52

Corporal punishment was definitely a thing when DB and I went to school in the 70s, but mainly in private school. It was only banned in state schools in England in the late 80s and later in private schools

HoppingPavlova · 03/12/2022 12:52

And teaching them to tie shoe laces - I was useless, I had to ask a left handed relative to do it.

Amen. No matter how hard right handed DH and myself tried it was a failure. It wasn’t until they were 11yo and had a left handed teacher who sat with them and showed them that they could do it. Once taught by another leftie they got it easily.

milkyaqua · 03/12/2022 12:54

It would depend on the school or the individual teacher. It was by no means a blanket rule that it was "thrashed out of" children.

MsFannySqueers · 03/12/2022 12:55

I only realised the other day that Kevin McCloud is left handed he was doodling on Grand Designs the other night. My sister is left handed however the primary school we went to whacked us all equally on the knuckles with a ruler. This was to ensure we formed written letters neatly. We do both have lovely neat handwriting!

missingeu · 03/12/2022 12:59

Am very pleased Dr Turner is protrayed as left handed, it shows his strength of character.

As a left handed health professional, I get soo fed up with the left handed comments. Yes, I'm left handed - get over it

SOWK · 03/12/2022 13:02

I was born in 1981. In reception the teacher made me sit with my left hand behind my back so I learnt to write with my right hand. She also kept me in at break times to do extra writing practice. I can write with both hands now.

Treaclemine · 03/12/2022 13:02

I was making a parallel to another subject on here. For a joke. As in "assigned x at birth". Only not male or female, but leftie. As opposed to ADAB. D for dextral. R for right would be very wrong. And I was doing it because some of the stories on here do show an actual mad dislike of leftishness. Which I have never met but find appalling.
You won't find ALAB on google. I made it up

MarshaMelrose · 03/12/2022 13:03

Yes, @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g , I'd heard about being given the ruler but it didn't happen in my schools, nor any of the schools my relatives or friends went to. I know it was the decision of the heads in those schools that it was unnecessary. As someone else said, maybe I, too, was just fortunate enough to live in an enlightened area. I agree that it seems so alien now that people could be hit with a belt by a teacher - especially at a primary school. So sad.
But writing left handed was never an issue. The only problem for left handers was that we used to have to write using fountains cartridge pens so they inevitably used to smudge more. But obviously as biros became accepted, that solved the problem. Clearly from this thread some people were ill treated for writing with their left hand but I'd hate for younger generations to think that was the norm. Because it wasn't.

LeavesOnTrees · 03/12/2022 13:03

My grandfather was forced to write with his right hand. He born in the 20s.
He continued writing with his right in adult hood.

MarshaMelrose · 03/12/2022 13:04

MsFannySqueers · 03/12/2022 12:55

I only realised the other day that Kevin McCloud is left handed he was doodling on Grand Designs the other night. My sister is left handed however the primary school we went to whacked us all equally on the knuckles with a ruler. This was to ensure we formed written letters neatly. We do both have lovely neat handwriting!

How refreshing to see there was no discrimination. 😂 Equality for all.

PlaitBilledDuckyPuss · 03/12/2022 13:05

Treaclemine · 03/12/2022 13:02

I was making a parallel to another subject on here. For a joke. As in "assigned x at birth". Only not male or female, but leftie. As opposed to ADAB. D for dextral. R for right would be very wrong. And I was doing it because some of the stories on here do show an actual mad dislike of leftishness. Which I have never met but find appalling.
You won't find ALAB on google. I made it up

Ah, got you now!

Incidentally raises an interesting question - at what point do parents notice their child's dominant hand and 'assign' them a handedness?

Peedoffo · 03/12/2022 13:05

I had handwriting lessons and all sorts provided by MC primary school. I was born in 93 always refused to use my right hand. Teacher gave up in the end, they tried to change my pen grip and all sorts. I still have messy handwriting thank god nearly everything is computer based.

Peedoffo · 03/12/2022 13:08

AccidentallyRunToWindsor · 03/12/2022 12:26

I am forever shocked that my left handed DP uses his mouse in his right hand! When he learnt to use a computer at school (so 90's) that's just where the mice were, diddnt occur to move it so he uses it to this day.

I also use my mouse right handed because that's where it was at school 🤣🤣. Track pad on laptop either I'm ambidextrous for that.

SweetestThing · 03/12/2022 13:11

My mother, born in 1932, was forced to write with her right hand. Screwed her up in many ways. I'm a leftie and was allowed to write with my next hand but all sports, had to play right-handed, no left-handed scissors in those days or any accommodation really for lefties. The world is definitely geared for right-handed people. DH also a leftie but both children right-handed. Helping them learn to write was a challenge! Also, I'm an upside down writer (like Prince William) and DH is a push the pen across the page leftie.

Really bugs me that all promo pens with slogans, company names etc, are upside down for us lefties. As that every ticket barrier slot is on the right hand side so I have to reach across me to insert my ticket or swipe my card.

64 years of pent up leftie frustration here 😀

SweetestThing · 03/12/2022 13:14

Write with my LEFT hand, not next!!

Treaclemine · 03/12/2022 13:15

I was taught to use a billiard cue by a leftie, who didn't bother to tell me, until some time later when he commented that he didn' know I was a leftie, and I denied it. I couldn't switch to right, though.
My artistic colleague used the computer mouse upside down, that is with the lead towards her. I couldn't get her to switch (my job). My memory is of it being in her right hand, but that doesn't make sense.

Abraxan · 03/12/2022 13:28

Whilst it happened a fair bit it was a universally applied system.

There are many elderly people around who are left handed who didn't have it 'thrashed out of them' and/or who reverted back to,left handed outside of school.

MarshaMelrose · 03/12/2022 13:32

Spacie · 03/12/2022 12:48

There are quite a few left handed batsmen who are actually right handed. It's more to do with eye dominance than hand dominance which are linked but not 100%

How interesting. My dad was a really good cricketer so it clearly worked for him playing left-handed but I could never understand why. He wasn't great one for self-introspection 😁 and would just say it felt right. I'd never have guessed it would be to do with his eyes. So thanks for that. You learn new things all the time on MN.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 03/12/2022 13:41

PlaitBilledDuckyPuss · 03/12/2022 13:05

Ah, got you now!

Incidentally raises an interesting question - at what point do parents notice their child's dominant hand and 'assign' them a handedness?

Show quote history

We left it entirely to our children. Daughter was strongly RH from the moment she started reaching for things. Son used both hands interchangeably until around the time he started Reception and then he consistently used his right hand.

Catinabeanbag · 03/12/2022 14:04

I always liked the fact Dt Turner was a leftie - just assumed he was lucky and didn't get it beaten out of him at school! Am guessing Stephen McGann decided not to try and fake it by being a rightie.

My uncle was born in (I think) 1939 and is a leftie. As far as I know he didn't have any issues at school. I'm also a leftie (born 1975) and never had any isses either. Can play baseball / rounders either way, but hold a racquet in my left hand. Throw and kick right handed / footed. Cut (scissors) right handed...everything else lefty. Can't knit to save my life!! My mum (rightie) tried to teach me and it was a disaster.
My twin niece and nephew are also lefties, but all of us (uncle, me, niece and nephew) all born to right handed parents.

Rafa Nadal is naturally right handed but plays tennis left handed. Occasionally it works the other way!

Bluelightbaby · 03/12/2022 14:22

My dad was born in London 1946 and was forced to write with his right hand. They used to make him out his left hand behind his back !

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 03/12/2022 15:10

DDad was burn in 1931, so probably roughly the same age as the fictional Dr Turner, and he was forced to stop using his left hand at school.

Athena51 · 03/12/2022 15:14

AccidentallyRunToWindsor · 03/12/2022 12:26

I am forever shocked that my left handed DP uses his mouse in his right hand! When he learnt to use a computer at school (so 90's) that's just where the mice were, diddnt occur to move it so he uses it to this day.

I'm a leftie born in the late 60s and always wrote with my left hand no problem but like your DP when I started to use a mouse at work in the 90s I just used my right hand as that was the only option and now despite being very left-handed I can only use a mouse that way. I eat in the "normal" way too with fork in left hand and knife in right.

LBFseBrom · 03/12/2022 15:15

Why be annoyed at someone writing with their left hand? Lots of people are left handed, eg Paul McCartney, William Prince of Wales.

Yes some schools and teachers did try to make left handed people write with their right hand way back - my late father in law was one - but not for a very long time.

BeatlejuiceBeatlejuiceBeatlejuice · 03/12/2022 15:29

I think it must have varied a lot. My MIL is in her 80’s and still very much left handed. She was a midwife also.