SIR – After more than 80 years as a left-hander writer, I have never seen or heard the experiences of other ‘sinister’ people.

Latterly, I have noticed that more people these days are less shy about being observed writing in this way, even a few MPs can be seen on TV making notes.

At school in the 1930s, I was given five strokes of the headmaster’s cane on each hand every Friday afternoon at 3.55pm so I could recover on my way home.

I never resented the caning, it was just one of the experiences of growing up. Years, later, I became a headmaster, and at times of illness a regular supply teacher was my former headmaster, and we became firm friends.

As a signaller in the Army, I discovered a means of writing neatly with a right-handers slope by writing ‘over the top’ and have continued ever since.

It would be interesting to learn how other ‘sinister’ people have coped. At school, by Friday afternoon the ink-wells were a mess of clogged blotting paper. The head assumed that I had made spelling mistakes, and more than three mistakes earned a stroke of the cane up to the limit of ten.

In Italy, ‘sinister’ means ‘left’. Many items of stationery and books are designed to suit ‘right-handers’. Even the flow of ink in this letter has been irregular.

Geoffrey Smith, Nab Wood Crescent, Shipley