Saturday night at 8 o'clock found me not at the movies however at the Cinema Museum, a hidden gem near the Oval cricket ground in South London, located in a former workhouse which was quickly home to the young Charlie Chaplin after his mom fell on tough times.

Truth be informed, I hardly ever venture south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, alerted Arthur Daley: 'Lot of extremely wicked individuals' in Sarf Lunnon.

Coincidentally, the event was a one-man show by my old mate George Layton, star, director, scriptwriter, author, whose finest hour - at least to my mind - was playing Des, the dodgy vehicle mechanic in Minder.

George read from his collection of narratives embeded in the 1950s, when he was growing up in post-war Bradford. They're beautifully written, warm, amusing, evocative, a slice of history, a working-class variation of Richmal Crompton's Just William experiences.

The storylines are based upon the trials and tribulations of a boy being brought up by a single mom - a non-traditional domesticity at that time, unfortunately only too typical today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually been in print given that 1975 and found its method on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't help wondering, though, how frequently these glorious texts are used in class these days, in between instructors stuffing their pupils' little heads with trendy far-Left propaganda about 'white advantage', colonialism and, of course, climate change.

The kids in the monochrome school photo which formed the backdrop to George's reading were definitely white, but no one could have explained them as fortunate. Those were the days when 'austerity' meant living from hand to mouth, not needing to opt for a basic 50in flat screen TV, rather of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and just having the ability to manage an iPhone 14 instead of the current all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

Child poverty was real, bread-and-dripping, holes-in-your-shoes things, not dining on Deliveroo and reluctantly wearing last Nike trainers.

Until the digital/social media revolution, children gained their understanding primarily from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, children experienced real hardship, not the hardship of aspiration and imagination which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live through their mobile phones, rather of strolling free and experiencing life to the complete.

Until the digital/social media revolution, children acquired their understanding mainly from books. Yes, TV played a big function, as did the motion pictures, but no place near the supremacy of TikTok and other apps providing pleasure principle in byte-sized pieces.

And how can squinting at the newest CGI generated blockbuster on a mobile phone a few inches wide ever compare to the type of old-school, cinema, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience celebrated at the Cinema Museum?

It can't. Just as the very best photos are said to be on the radio, even much better images can be found in the printed word.

One of the most dismal things I have actually checked out recently was the author Anthony Horowitz regreting the truth that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the shorter attention periods of today's children.

No surprise child, and indeed adult, literacy levels have plunged alarmingly. All this has added to the stunning discovery that white, working class pupils - young boys in specific - are being left behind. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has actually been forced to confess they have been 'betrayed' by the modern schools system.

They experience an absence of adult participation and consequent scarceness of goal. The white, working class boy in George Layton's stories definitely didn't suffer any parental disregard from his imperious mum. Nor did he lack imagination or goal.

Education was the way out of hardship. It produced eloquent wordsmiths like George, in post-war Bradford - and our own dear Keith Waterhouse, late of this parish, who matured in poverty in neighboring pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the biggest present we can bestow on any child. My grandmothers taught me to check out before I went to school, setting me on the early roadway to a fulfilling profession at the wordface rather than the relative drudgery of the work environment.

George Layton is thinking about taking his one-man show on the road, to small provincial theatres. I have actually got a better idea.

If the Education Secretary desires to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she might start by getting the phone and welcoming George to tour schools, checking out from his narratives.

I truthfully believe that if they might be persuaded to look up from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and inspired by the experiences of a young kid not that various to them, despite the distance in years.

You never know, there may even be another Charlie Chaplin among them.

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old men or nicking people for posting hurty words on the internet, the cops are significantly taking sidelines to supplement their earnings.

Some are working as painters and decorators, others as scaffolders nand shipment chauffeurs. More intriguingly, sidelines likewise consist of a DJ (PC Hammer, anybody?) and a reiki instructor, whatever that is.

My favourites are beekeeper and kickboxing coach, although the copper running a tea store needs to take the biscuit.
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It's likewise reported that some officers are working as grocery store checkout assistants. I do not expect there's any threat of them nicking a few shoplifters.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who purchased a baby from a stranger are selfish in the severe

First the frogs, now the octopuses The unlawful migrant armada crossing the Channel daily may turn out to be the least of our problems. We now find out that a fleet of foreign octopuses from the Med is devouring crab stocks off the coast of Devon and Cornwall and threatening to put local fishermen out of company.

It's bad enough French trawlers hoovering up our fish without migrant molluscs assisting themselves to what's left.

We're also informed that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable intrusive species' having left into the wild and are colonising cities as far afield as Plymouth and Aberdeen. No doubt we'll be putting them up in the nearby Holiday Inn soon.

Which's before I get to the buzzard that's been dive-bombing kids in a school play area in Romford, Essex. Where the hell did that come from?

We've got enough trouble with home-grown Stuka-style pigeons without importing kamikaze buzzards.

Take Labour's 'aspiration' to invest a worthless three per cent of GDP on defence by the year 2525 with a shovel-load of Maldon's finest. The way Rachel From Complaints is taxing the economy to death, there will not be any GDP left in a few years' time. And 3 per cent of stuff all is still stuff all.

AN NHS surgeon who compared Islamist terrorists to the Nazis has been struck off. If he 'd stated the very same about those people who wish to leave the European yuman rites convention, Surkeir would have made him Attorney general of the United States.

Having recently declared that the original ancient Britons were black, the woke deconstructionists now declare the Vikings were Muslims. Don't these people ever take a day of rest?
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