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

Truth be informed, I seldom endeavor south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, warned Arthur Daley: 'Lot of extremely wicked individuals' in Sarf Lunnon.

Coincidentally, the celebration 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 car mechanic in Minder.

George was reading from his collection of narratives set in the 1950s, when he was maturing in post-war Bradford. They're perfectly composed, warm, amusing, evocative, a piece of history, a working-class version of Richmal Crompton's Just William experiences.

The storylines are based upon the trials and tribulations of a kid being raised by a single mother - an unconventional domesticity back then, unfortunately just too typical today. The Fib And Other Stories has remained in print considering that 1975 and discovered its method on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't assist wondering, though, how frequently these wonderful texts are utilized in class these days, in between instructors packing their pupils' little heads with stylish far-Left propaganda about 'white opportunity', manifest destiny and, obviously, climate change.

The kids in the monochrome school picture which formed the backdrop to George's reading were definitely white, however nobody might have explained them as fortunate. Those were the days when 'austerity' meant living from hand to mouth, not having to opt for a basic 50in flat screen TV, rather of a 65in OLED Ultra model, and only being able to pay for an iPhone 14 rather than the latest all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

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

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

In the 1950s, children experienced authentic hardship, not the hardship of ambition and creativity which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live via their cellphones, rather of wandering totally free and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids got their understanding mainly from books. Yes, TV played a huge function, as did the motion pictures, but nowhere near the dominance of TikTok and other apps offering pleasure principle in byte-sized pieces.

And how can squinting at the current CGI created hit on a mobile phone a few inches broad ever compare with the kind 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 photos are said to be on the radio, even much better images can be discovered in the printed word.

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

Not surprising that child, and indeed adult, literacy levels have plummeted alarmingly. All this has added to the stunning revelation that white, working class students - kids in specific - are being left. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been required to admit they have been 'betrayed' by the modern-day schools system.

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

Education was the escape of poverty. 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 nearby pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the biggest 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 satisfying profession at the wordface instead of the relative drudgery of the workplace.

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

If the Education Secretary desires to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she might begin by selecting up the phone and inviting George to explore schools, checking out from his narratives.

I truthfully think that if they could be encouraged to look up from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be and influenced by the adventures of a young boy not that various to them, in spite of the range in years.

You never ever know, there might even be another Charlie Chaplin amongst them.

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old guys or nicking individuals for publishing 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 delivery motorists. More intriguingly, 2nd jobs likewise consist of 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 shop 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 danger of them nicking a few shoplifters.

Mind how you go.

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

First the frogs, now the octopuses The unlawful migrant armada crossing the Channel daily may end up being 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 anglers out of service.

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 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 closest Holiday Inn in the past long.

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

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

Take Labour's 'ambition' to spend a pathetic three per cent 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 won't be any GDP left in a few years' time. And 3 per cent of stuff all is still pack all.

AN NHS surgeon who compared Islamist terrorists to the Nazis has 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.

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?