Left without a blot

SIR – John Bergin (Letters, February 24) writes that, as a left-hander, he could not use a dip pen or a fountain pen without causing smudges. I would respectfully suggest that he cannot have been holding his pen correctly.

Online, he will find the “pinch and flip” trick described, together with the advice to rest the fifth finger of his writing hand on the page.

I am left-handed, and have been using a pen and ink for writing for 70 years without a smudge, including 35 years of writing patients’ notes.

Leonardo da Vinci appears not to have had a problem with smudges either. Robin Ballard

South Petherton, Somerset