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

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

Coincidentally, the celebration 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 read from his collection of narratives embeded in the 1950s, when he was maturing in post-war Bradford. They're wonderfully written, warm, amusing, expressive, a slice of history, a working-class variation of Richmal Crompton's Just William experiences.

The storylines are based on the trials and adversities of a young boy being brought up by a single mother - an unconventional domesticity back then, unfortunately just too typical today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually remained in print given that 1975 and found its way on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't assist wondering, however, how often these marvelous texts are used in class these days, in between teachers packing their students' little heads with fashionable far-Left propaganda about 'white benefit', manifest destiny and, of course, environment modification.

The kids in the monochrome school photo which formed the background to George's reading were certainly white, but no one might have explained them as privileged. Those were the days when 'austerity' implied living from hand to mouth, not needing to choose a fundamental 50in flat screen TV, rather of a 65in OLED Ultra model, and just being able to afford an iPhone 14 rather than the most current all-singing, all-dancing AI version.

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

Until the digital/social media transformation, kids got their knowledge primarily from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, kids experienced authentic difficulty, not the poverty of aspiration and imagination which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live via their cellphones, instead of wandering free and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids gained their knowledge mainly from books. Yes, TV played a big role, as did the movies, but nowhere near the dominance of TikTok and other apps using instantaneous gratification in byte-sized pieces.

And how can squinting at the newest CGI generated hit on a cellular phone a few inches wide ever compare with the type of old-school, big screen, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience commemorated at the Cinema Museum?

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

Among the most dismal things I've read just recently was the author Anthony Horowitz regreting the truth that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the shorter attention periods these days's children.

Not surprising that kid, and undoubtedly adult, literacy levels have dropped alarmingly. All this has added to the stunning revelation that white, working class students - young boys in specific - are being left behind. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has actually been required to admit they have actually been 'betrayed' by the contemporary schools system.

They experience an absence of parental participation and following paucity of aspiration. The white, working class boy in George Layton's stories certainly didn't suffer any adult neglect from his prideful mum. Nor did he lack imagination or aspiration.

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

Literacy is the greatest gift we can bestow on any kid. My grannies taught me to read before I went to school, setting me on the early roadway to a fulfilling career at the wordface rather than the relative drudgery of the work environment.

George Layton is considering taking his one-man show on the roadway, 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 choosing up the phone and inviting George to visit schools, checking out from his brief stories.

I truthfully think that if they could be persuaded to search for from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and influenced by the of a young boy not that different to them, despite the range 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 individuals for publishing hurty words on the internet, the authorities are increasingly taking 2nd jobs to supplement their income.

Some are working as painters and designers, others as scaffolders nand shipment motorists. 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 also reported that some officers are working as grocery store checkout assistants. I do not expect there's any threat of them nicking a couple of shoplifters.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who purchased an infant from a complete stranger are self-centered in the severe

First the frogs, now the octopuses
The unlawful migrant armada crossing the Channel daily might turn out to be the least of our issues. 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 anglers 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 told that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable intrusive 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 eventually.

And that'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 trouble with home-grown Stuka-style pigeons without importing kamikaze buzzards.

Take Labour's 'aspiration' to invest a worthless 3 percent of GDP on defence by the year 2525 with a shovel-load of Maldon's finest. The method Rachel From Complaints is taxing the economy to death, there will not be any GDP left in a couple of years' time. And three percent of stuff 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 of us who wish to leave the European yuman rites convention, Surkeir would have made him Chief law officer.

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