The curious fork convention across the pond

SIR – Mike Williams’s point (Letters, April 9) concerning a fork in the dominant hand is a curious one.

I have noticed that Americans approach their plate of food in the conventional way, then transfer their fork to the dominant hand before eating. Why is this?

Gray Wilson

Crowle, Worcestershire

SIR – Only left-handers will remember the years spent writing awkwardly on right-handed cheque stubs, until a left-handed book was issued. Now I don’t have to write cheques ever again. Denise Hilton

Guildford, Surrey

SIR – My husband is right-handed but his mother is left-handed. He was brought up using a left-handed potato peeler (Letters, April 8), with which he would whittle the potatoes.

During our early marriage he insisted he could not use a righthanded peeler and therefore escaped potato duties. We have now discovered the scraper-type peelers, which can be used with either hand, so he has to take his turn with the potatoes.

Anne Hanley

Gunnislake, Cornwall

SIR – When I married in 1961, my mother bought me a left-handed iron. Not as daft as it sounds: in those days, irons had the cable firmly fixed to the right-hand “heel”.

The Anything Lefthanded shop just off Piccadilly Circus would certainly have stocked a left-handed gravy ladle (Letters, April 8).

Jill Silversides

Worthing, West Sussex

SIR – I have looked high and low for a left-handed cake fork. A very firstworld, middle-class, middle-of-theafternoon problem!

Penelope Sparrow Stockport, Cheshire