Saturday night at 8 o'clock discovered me not at the motion pictures but at the Cinema Museum, a surprise gem near the Oval cricket ground in South London, located in a former workhouse which was briefly home to the young Charlie Chaplin after his mom fell on tough times.

Truth be informed, I rarely endeavor south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, alerted Arthur Daley: 'Great deal of really wicked individuals' in Sarf Lunnon.

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

George was checking out 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 piece of history, a working-class variation of Richmal Crompton's Just William adventures.

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

I can't assist questioning, though, how frequently these remarkable texts are used in class these days, in between instructors stuffing their pupils' little heads with fashionable far-Left propaganda about 'white benefit', manifest destiny and, naturally, climate modification.

The kids in the monochrome school photo which formed the backdrop to George's reading were certainly white, but no one could have explained them as privileged. Those were the days when 'austerity' indicated living from hand to mouth, not having to go for a basic 50in flat screen TV, instead of a 65in OLED Ultra model, and just being able to pay for an iPhone 14 instead of the current all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

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

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids got their understanding mostly from books, writes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, children experienced real difficulty, not the poverty of ambition and imagination which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live by means of their mobile phones, rather of roaming complimentary and experiencing life to the complete.

Until the digital/social media transformation, children acquired their knowledge mainly from books. Yes, TV played a big function, as did the movies, but nowhere near the dominance of TikTok and other apps providing immediate satisfaction in byte-sized pieces.

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

Among the most depressing 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 spans these days's children.

No marvel kid, and certainly adult, literacy levels have actually plummeted amazingly. All this has actually contributed to the shocking discovery that white, working class pupils - boys in specific - are being left behind. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been required to admit they have been 'betrayed' by the contemporary schools system.

They struggle with a lack of adult participation and ensuing scarceness of aspiration. The white, working class boy in George Layton's stories certainly didn't suffer any parental disregard from his aggressive mum. Nor did he lack imagination or aspiration.

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

Literacy is the best present we can bestow on any kid. My grannies taught me to read before I went to school, setting me on the early road to a fulfilling career at the wordface rather than the relative drudgery of the workplace.

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

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

I honestly believe that if they might be encouraged to search for from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and influenced by the adventures of a young kid not that various to them, despite the range in decades.

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

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old males or nicking people for publishing hurty words on the internet, the authorities are increasingly taking sidelines to supplement their earnings.

Some are working as painters and decorators, others as scaffolders nand delivery motorists. More intriguingly, 2nd jobs also include 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 grocery store checkout assistants. I do not suppose there's any threat of them nicking a few thiefs.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who bought a child 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 feasting on crab stocks off the coast of Devon and Cornwall and threatening to put regional anglers out of company.

It's bad enough French trawlers hoovering up our fish without migrant molluscs helping 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 closest Holiday Inn soon.

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

We have actually got enough difficulty with home-grown Stuka-style pigeons without buzzards.

Take Labour's 'ambition' to invest a useless 3 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 will not be any GDP left in a few years' time. And three per cent of things all is still pack all.