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Saturday night at eight o'clock found me not at the films however at the Cinema Museum, a surprise 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 tough times.

Truth be informed, I rarely venture south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, cautioned Arthur Daley: 'Great deal of extremely 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 - at least to my mind - was playing Des, the dodgy automobile mechanic in Minder.

George read from his collection of short stories set in the 1950s, when he was maturing in post-war Bradford. They're magnificently composed, warm, funny, evocative, a piece of history, a working-class variation of Richmal Crompton's Just William experiences.

The stories are based upon the trials and adversities of a boy being brought up by a single mom - an unconventional household life at that time, unfortunately just too common today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually remained in print considering that 1975 and discovered its method on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't assist questioning, however, how often these marvelous texts are used in class nowadays, in between instructors packing their pupils' little heads with stylish far-Left propaganda about 'white benefit', colonialism and, of course, climate modification.

The kids in the monochrome school photo which formed the background to George's reading were certainly white, however nobody could have described them as fortunate. Those were the days when 'austerity' suggested living from hand to mouth, not having to opt for a standard 50in flat screen TV, rather of a 65in OLED Ultra model, and just being able to manage an iPhone 14 instead of the most recent all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

Child hardship was real, 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 transformation, kids got their knowledge mostly 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, instead of wandering totally free and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids acquired their knowledge mainly from books. Yes, TV played a big role, as did the films, however no place near the dominance of TikTok and other apps offering pleasure principle in byte-sized chunks.

And how can squinting at the most current CGI generated blockbuster on a cellphone a couple of inches broad ever compare with the kind of old-school, huge screen, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience celebrated 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.

One of the most dismal things I have actually read just recently was the author Anthony Horowitz complaining the reality that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the shorter attention spans these days's kids.

Not surprising that kid, and certainly adult, literacy levels have plunged amazingly. All this has actually added to the stunning revelation that white, working class students - kids in particular - are being left. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has actually been forced to confess they have actually been 'betrayed' by the modern-day schools system.

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

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 hardship in nearby pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the best present we can bestow on any child. My grannies taught me to check out before I went to school, setting me on the early roadway to a satisfying career at the wordface rather than 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 wants to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she could begin by getting the phone and welcoming George to visit schools, reading from his short stories.

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

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

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old guys or nicking people for publishing hurty words on the internet, the police are progressively taking second tasks to supplement their earnings.

Some are working as painters and decorators, others as scaffolders nand shipment drivers. More intriguingly, sidelines likewise include a DJ (PC Hammer, anybody?) and a reiki instructor, 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 expect there's any threat of them nicking a couple of thiefs.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who bought a child from a complete stranger are self-centered in the extreme

First the frogs, now the octopuses
The prohibited migrant armada crossing the Channel daily might end up being 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 and threatening to put regional fishermen out of business.

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 gotten away 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 eventually.

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

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

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

AN NHS cosmetic surgeon who compared Islamist terrorists to the Nazis has 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 claimed that the original ancient Britons were black, the woke revisionists now allege the Vikings were Muslims. Don't these individuals ever take a day off?