Saturday night at eight o'clock discovered me not at the motion pictures however at the Cinema Museum, a hidden gem near the Oval cricket ground in South London, situated in a previous workhouse which was briefly home to the young Charlie Chaplin after his mom fell on tough times.

Truth be told, I hardly ever endeavor south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, warned Arthur Daley: 'Lot of extremely wicked people' in Sarf Lunnon.

Coincidentally, the event was a one-man program 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 was reading from his collection of short stories embeded in the 1950s, when he was maturing in post-war Bradford. They're beautifully composed, warm, funny, evocative, a slice of history, a working-class variation of Richmal Crompton's Just William experiences.

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

I can't help questioning, though, how often these glorious texts are utilized in class these days, in between teachers packing their pupils' little heads with stylish far-Left propaganda about 'white privilege', colonialism and, naturally, environment modification.

The kids in the monochrome school photograph which formed the backdrop to George's reading were certainly white, but nobody could have described them as fortunate. Those were the days when 'austerity' suggested living from hand to mouth, not needing to go for a fundamental 50in flat screen TV, instead of a 65in OLED Ultra model, and only being able to afford an iPhone 14 instead of the current all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

Child hardship was genuine, bread-and-dripping, holes-in-your-shoes things, not dining on Deliveroo and reluctantly wearing last season's Nike fitness instructors.

Until the digital/social media transformation, children acquired their primarily from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, kids experienced authentic hardship, not the poverty of aspiration and creativity which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live by means of their mobile phones, rather of roaming free and experiencing life to the complete.

Until the digital/social media transformation, children acquired their knowledge mainly from books. Yes, TV played a huge function, as did the films, however nowhere near the supremacy of TikTok and other apps using instantaneous satisfaction in byte-sized chunks.

And how can squinting at the current CGI generated hit on a cellphone a few inches wide ever compare to the type of old-school, huge screen, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience commemorated at the Cinema Museum?

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

Among the most dismaying things I've read just recently was the author Anthony Horowitz complaining 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 undoubtedly adult, literacy levels have actually plummeted amazingly. All this has actually contributed to the shocking discovery that white, working class students - kids in specific - are being left. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has actually been required to confess they have been 'betrayed' by the modern schools system.

They suffer from an absence of parental involvement and consequent paucity of goal. The white, working class boy in George Layton's stories certainly didn't suffer any parental overlook from his prideful mum. Nor did he do not have creativity or aspiration.

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

Literacy is the best present we can bestow on any kid. My grandmothers taught me to check out before I went to school, setting me on the early roadway to a fulfilling career at the wordface instead of the relative drudgery of the work environment.

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

If the Education Secretary wishes to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she might start by picking up the phone and welcoming George to explore schools, reading from his short stories.

I honestly think that if they could be encouraged to look up from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and motivated by the experiences of a young kid not that different to them, regardless of 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 guys or nicking individuals for publishing hurty words on the internet, the authorities are progressively taking second tasks to supplement their earnings.

Some are working as painters and designers, others as scaffolders nand delivery chauffeurs. More intriguingly, sidelines likewise consist of a DJ (PC Hammer, anyone?) and a reiki trainer, whatever that is.

My favourites are beekeeper and kickboxing coach, although the copper running a tea shop needs to take the biscuit.

It's likewise reported that some officers are working as supermarket checkout assistants. I don't suppose there's any threat of them nicking a few shoplifters.

Mind how you go.

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

First the frogs, now the octopuses
The illegal migrant armada crossing the Channel daily may turn out to be the least of our issues. We now discover 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 service.

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

We're also told that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable invasive types' having actually escaped 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 in the past long.

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

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

Take Labour's 'ambition' to spend a pathetic 3 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 three per cent of things all is still pack all.

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

Having recently claimed that the initial ancient Britons were black, the woke revisionists now allege the Vikings were Muslims. Don't these individuals ever take a day of rest?