39% of our survey respondents were male and 61% female. It is generally thought that there are slightly more male left-handers than female so does this just reflect the fact that males are less likely to fill in surveys?

We asked about the handedness of family members to see whether being left-handed runs in families. No-one has yet discovered a gene that causes handedness but anecdotal evidence indicates that it does run in families.

The results below show the percentage of left-handers for each family member, based only on the surveys completed by left-handers as "you" and ignoring all blank boxes. For example, 14% of left-handers had a left-handed mother but only 5% had a left-handed grandmother on their mother's side (grandmother2).

• In total, 11% of all left-handers' direct relatives were also left-handed
• The handedness of their parents was slightly higher then the generally accepted level of 10% of population being left-handed (although this figure itself has not been established by any proper large scale survey)
• Left-handedness seems to reduce with additional children, both with the person's own brothers and sisters and their own children. Could it be that the more children you have, the less left-handed they become?
• Left-handedness among grandparents is below average current levels. This may be due to the fact that at the time they were young, left-handedness was much less accepted and many people were forcibly changed to the right
• Only 1.4% of left-handers in the survey had both parents left-handed, 24% had one left-handed parent and 75% had two right-handed parents

We asked which hand people used for the following tasks and the results below show the percentage who used the left.

• Writing is the most common indicator of handedness so we can expect a very high percentage of people who consider themselves left-handed to use that hand for writing
• Where left-handers have a free choice, they usually use their left-hand, giving high percentages for all the tasks where the "tools" are ambidextrous, such as brushing hair
• The low percentage for using scissors probably reflects the lack of availability of left-handed scissors causing many people to change their hand rather than struggling with backwards scissors that don't cut properly
• There is a very low percentage of people who eat left-handed with knife and fork (i.e. with the knife in their left hand and fork in the right). We don't find this surprising as it is consistent to always feed yourself with your dominant hand - 95% of left-handers use a spoon on its own in their left hand and 74% also use a fork in their left hand. We think there has been some historic mistake here - using the fork in your left hand should be called "eating left-handed" and it is the right-handers who have got it all wrong and change their feeding hand depending on whether they are using a spoon or a fork.

We asked about what effect being left-handed had on our respondents' lives and this is what they told us.

• Some research has shown that left-handers are more intelligent and we certainly seem to think so ourselves, with 58% of left-handers considering themselves more intelligent than average!
• The same goes for creativity, with 48% considering themselves more creative than average
• Having 85% considering themselves more awkward or clumsy than average was a surprise - we thought that it was right-handers who thought that about us. However, it does show the extent to which living in a right-handed world has a negative effect on us.
• 71% had difficulties at school, mainly with writing, but only 24% got any help - which is a bit sad when a bit of basic help can make a great difference. Some of the comments we got were:

  "At school smudged work, but received no help to overcome problem"

  "Not much awareness or understanding in 70's and 80's (still!), was tested by "specialist" to determine the extent of my "disability"

  "Was given pen with left handed nib as matter of course" (hooray!)

• We were a bit surprised that, even in these days, 39% had been discouraged in some way from using their left hand
• We were very surprised that 39% of left-handers had never used a specialist left-handed implement! With all the great left-handed products available, we thought all left-handers had at least tried them to see if they made a difference. The most popular item was left-handed scissors
• The most popular subjects at school were maths and art, with over 40% of all left-handers giving one of these two

We asked whether there any ways in which being left-handed particularly helps or hinders you, and we got some great comments - here are some samples:

We hope you have found the results interesting and amusing - at least we all know there are millions of other left-handers out there facing the same challenges and getting the same benefits.

We will be following up the survey with a series of in-depth reports on particular aspects of being left-handed and we will publish these on the Anything Left-Handed website at as well as sending them to all registered Left-Handers Club members.