Right

It is one of those words which mean everything to everyone. For a start, everyone thinks they are right. How many wars has that caused? You try to stay on the right side of someone (ever wondered what the other side is called?) You have to keep on the right track. Most people are right-handed (we will come back to this soon). And you have the exclamation “Right!” which my dad used a lot.

For him it was often just like punctuation, closing one line of thought and then free to start a new one. But he also had what I grew to hate the habit of having his wife and two children stand on the side of the road waiting for a safe moment to cross, which was when (and only when) he said quite loudly “Right!” I suspect my mum hated this but she, as ever, never showed it.

As a schoolmaster you have to maintain the position of always being right, especially to your class of children. My dad once expressed his disappointment in anyone who thought a hair could grow again from the place where it had been pulled out. And how remarkable it was to have an injection in your left arm to cure a condition in your right arm. No-one dared challenge him. Certainly not his son.

My sister is left-handed, despite many efforts by my parents to ‘correct’ this when she was young. It is for me always a surprise to find the next left-handed person. I said that to the lady cutting my hair as a sort of compliment and she told me that it was because of the mirror that she appeared to be left-handed (making me feel a little stupid). Just a few weeks ago my sister sent me a postcard with this on it:

Sums her up from when I was that little brother she could (and would) dominate when we were young. Now she is a super sweet lady. How we all change! Go back in time and being left-handed made you a potential threat – hence the word “sinister” (Latin for left). My dad was always happy when I learned a new Latin word.

Being right-handed saves you a lot of money. Fountain pens (no longer used of course), hockey sticks, scissors and a whole load of other things are more expensive. Odd when you think of it is wagons and later cars drove on the left side of the road because the drivers were right-handed. Also shaking hands you use your right hand – exception being when the other person has no right arm, as I learned as a small boy when I met the father of a girl who had no right arm.

Finally, you have the Right Wing in politics and they are generally bad news. Brexit is the most recent opportunity they have grasped to rob the poor even more. This may sound controversial but surely when you think about it you will see that I am right – oh dear!