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Saturday night at eight o'clock discovered me not at the movies however at the Cinema Museum, a covert gem near the Oval cricket ground in South London, situated in a former 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: 'Great deal of very wicked people' in Sarf Lunnon.

Coincidentally, the occasion was a one-man program by my old mate George Layton, actor, director, scriptwriter, author, whose finest hour - a minimum of to my mind - was playing Des, the dodgy cars and truck mechanic in Minder.

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

The storylines are based on the trials and tribulations of a kid being brought up by a single mother - an unconventional domesticity at that time, regretfully just too common today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually remained in print since 1975 and found its method on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't help wondering, though, how often these wonderful texts are utilized in class nowadays, in between instructors packing their pupils' little heads with stylish far-Left propaganda about 'white privilege', manifest destiny and, obviously, climate modification.

The kids in the monochrome school photograph which formed the backdrop to George's reading were definitely white, but no one could have described them as privileged. Those were the days when 'austerity' indicated living from hand to mouth, not having to settle for a basic 50in flat screen TV, rather of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and just having the ability to afford an iPhone 14 rather than the most recent all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

Child poverty was real, bread-and-dripping, holes-in-your-shoes stuff, not dining on Deliveroo and hesitantly wearing last season's Nike fitness instructors.

Until the digital/social media transformation, children gained their understanding mainly from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, children experienced genuine challenge, not the hardship of ambition and creativity which this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live by means of their cellphones, instead of roaming free and experiencing life to the complete.

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids gained their understanding mostly from books. Yes, TV played a huge function, as did the films, but nowhere near the dominance of TikTok and other apps using instantaneous satisfaction in byte-sized chunks.

And how can squinting at the current CGI produced blockbuster on a cellular phone a couple of inches large ever compare with the sort of old-school, huge screen, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience commemorated at the Cinema Museum?

It can't. Just as the finest pictures are stated to be on the radio, even better photos can be discovered in the printed word.

Among the most dismaying things I've checked out recently was the author Anthony Horowitz bemoaning the fact that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the much shorter attention periods these days's kids.

No wonder child, and undoubtedly adult, literacy levels have actually plummeted alarmingly. All this has actually added to the stunning discovery that white, working class students - kids in particular - are being left behind. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has actually been forced to admit they have actually been 'betrayed' by the contemporary schools system.

They suffer from an absence of adult involvement and ensuing scarceness of aspiration. The white, working class young boy in George Layton's stories certainly didn't suffer any parental overlook from his domineering 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 gift we can bestow on any child. My grandmas taught me to check out before I went to school, setting me on the early roadway to a satisfying career at the wordface instead of the relative drudgery of the office.

George Layton is considering taking his one-man program on the road, to small provincial theatres. I've got a better concept.

If the Education Secretary wishes to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she could begin by getting the phone and welcoming George to tour schools, reading from his short stories.

I honestly believe that if they could be encouraged to look up from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and inspired by the adventures of a young kid not that various to them, in spite of the range in decades.

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

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old men or nicking individuals for posting hurty words on the web, the authorities are progressively taking 2nd tasks to supplement their income.

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

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

It's also reported that some officers are working as grocery store 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 extreme

First the frogs, now the octopuses
The prohibited migrant armada crossing the Channel daily might turn out to be the least of our issues. We now learn that a fleet of foreign octopuses from the Med is devouring crab stocks off the coast of Devon and Cornwall and threatening to put regional anglers out of business.

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

We're likewise informed that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable invasive species' 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 nearest Holiday Inn soon.

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

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

Take Labour's 'ambition' to invest a worthless three percent 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 won't be any GDP left in a couple of years' time. And 3 per cent of stuff all is still stuff all.

AN NHS cosmetic surgeon who compared Islamist terrorists to the Nazis has actually been struck off. If he 'd said the 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 just recently declared that the original ancient Britons were black, the woke deconstructionists now allege the Vikings were Muslims. Don't these individuals ever take a day of rest?