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Cricket Bats. A few shops now cater to left-handers who either cannot or will not adjust to a right-handed world. One of the most interesting—run by a righthander, surprisingly—is Anything Left-Handed, Ltd. in London's West End. Its director, William Gruby, 39, opened his store late last year after giving a dinner party at which he and his wife found that their four guests were all left-handed and all perfectly willing to complain bitterly about the nuisances of life in a right-handed world. Doing market research, Gruby found that shop clerks treated his inquiries with some Dark Ages-style rudeness. When he asked for a left-handed can opener, for instance, he was asked if he wanted a left-handed can as well. He stocks left-handed versions of most types of kitchen hardware, irons, and also carries artists' palettes, dressmakers' scissors, surgeons' knives, pruning shears and cricket bats.
Potentially, the market for southpaw-oriented commercial ventures is four times greater than the 8% of the population that is now estimated to be lefthanded. "If there were no interference on the part of parents and teachers," says Dr. Bryng Bryngelson, a Minnesota psychologist, "34 out of every 100 children born today would become left-handed."