TOMORROW is my daughter's special day. No, it is not her birthday or some other anniversary to mark a certain event in her life.

It is a day she shares with around ten per cent of the world's population. Tomorrow, August 13, 2002, is Left-Handers Day.

I must admit, when she first showed signs of preferring her left hand to her right I was thrown into a bit of a panic. As far as my I knew, there had been no left-handers in my family nor my husband's, and it brought with it the worry of having to tackle the unknown.

Having written about left-handedness in the past, I knew that in less enlightened times left-handed infants were often forced to use their right. I certainly didn't go down the road of fastening my daughter's left hand to the back of a chair, as used to happen in schools in days gone by, but I am loath to say that for a while I did stick crayons in her right hand and pray that she would change her mind.

"It's no big deal," left-handed colleagues told me. Isn't it? So why then are there special clubs for left-handers, special kitchen utensils, gardening tools and stationery (you can even get cheque books adapted

for left-handers), guides for teachers and parents, as well a special day of the year? It's obviously not that ordinary. As the Association of Left-Handers - another "leftie" group - points out on its website, "every left-hander has to live in a world designed exclusively for right-handers".

I know that in the scheme of things its a relatively trivial handicap - I'm sure to be lambasted for calling it that. And, it doesn't mean you're short on grey matter or artistic talent - Albert Einstein was left-handed as was Pablo Picasso (thinking about it, my daughter's paintings aren't unlike some of his well-known works) and Michelangelo.

They are also good at ball games - John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg are left-handed.

But left-handers are renowned for being awkward and clumsy and in some societies they are still looked upon with suspicion.

In some countries small children have been accused of being in cahoots with the devil or of being a communist for trying to use their left hand. The latter wouldn't worry me. If my four-year-old showed more of an interest in Karl Marx than she does in Barbie I'd be straight on to Max Clifford with my eye on a new house.

The idea of devil worship is slightly more worrying, although sometimes both my children behave as if they're direct descendants.

It's probably a load of old bunkum. As for being clumsy, my eldest, right-handed, daughter makes far more demands on the accident & emergency department at our local hospital than her younger sister. I've also read that left-handers are often seen as being clumsy and awkward not because of their natural abilities, but by being forced to use right-handed tools and machinery which, to them, seem completely

back-to-front. No wonder my daughter made such a horrendous mess as a toddler when, ignorant of her leftie leanings, I would shove a spoon in her right hand.

Now that we know for sure, I reckon we can manage. With a few concessions, a few specially-designed gadgets here and there. Just so long as I remember to keep the secateurs, hedge clippers and potato peeler locked up.