A lifetime of love for Wharfedale wildlife

June 18, 2026 • UK news

Letters: Grass Wood | Toilet handedness | Bowled over | Right bias | Stupa walking

Mark Cocker’s article (Country diary, 16 June) took me back many years. Just after the war we lived in Rochdale, and as transport became available again, my parents took me as a very young child on holiday to Wharfedale, where we stayed at the Tennants Arms, just under Kilnsey Crag. We had several walks through Grass Wood, and my outstanding memory is finding what I thought was a snake – actually a slowworm. It gave me an abiding interest in wildlife, and Grass Wood has remained in my mind for nearly 90 years as a most beautiful and enchanted place. Patricia King Brixham, Devon • Michael Bulley wonders if there is “a preferred direction of turning round when you go to sit on the lavatory bowl”, and if it depends on handedness (Letters, 16 June) . Yes, if you are right-handed, you turn counterclockwise to sit on the loo, and if you are left-handed, you turn clockwise. Or at least that is what my research has shown. Judith Steiner London • On the rare occasions that I have found myself sitting on the lavatory bowl, I was either drunk or half asleep, and hadn’t noticed the seat was upright. Chris Batchelor Sheffield • Surely our innate left-leaning, anticlockwise inclination is definitive proof that any bias to the right is a human aberration. Paul McGilchrist Cromer, Norfolk • Humanity might be going round in opposite circles. Buddhist stupa walking has a clockwise tradition, as do many other pilgrimages. Peter Nias Bradford • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

Source: The Guardian