Saturday night at 8 o'clock found me not at the movies however at the Cinema Museum, a concealed 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 difficult times.

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

Coincidentally, the event 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 vehicle mechanic in Minder.

George was reading from his collection of brief stories embeded in the 1950s, when he was maturing in post-war Bradford. They're beautifully written, warm, funny, expressive, a piece of history, a working-class version of Richmal Crompton's Just William adventures.

The storylines are based on the trials and tribulations of a young boy being brought up by a single mother - a non-traditional family life at that time, sadly just too typical today. The Fib And Other Stories has remained in print given that 1975 and discovered its way on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't help wondering, however, how often these remarkable texts are used in class these days, in between teachers 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 background to George's reading were definitely white, however no one might have explained them as fortunate. Those were the days when 'austerity' indicated living from hand to mouth, not having to opt for a standard 50in flat screen TV, rather of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and only having the ability to pay for 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 revolution, children acquired their understanding mostly from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, children experienced genuine challenge, not the poverty of aspiration and imagination which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live via their mobile phones, rather of wandering 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 films, but no place near the supremacy of TikTok and other apps offering instant satisfaction in byte-sized pieces.

And how can squinting at the latest CGI produced blockbuster on a mobile phone a few inches large ever compare to 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 best photos are stated to be on the radio, even much better images can be found in the printed word.

One of the most dismaying things I have actually checked out just recently was the author Anthony Horowitz regreting the reality that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the shorter attention periods these days's kids.

No surprise child, and certainly adult, literacy levels have plunged alarmingly. All this has actually added to the stunning revelation that white, working class pupils - kids in specific - are being left behind. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been required to admit they have been 'betrayed' by the modern schools system.

They struggle with an absence of adult participation and following paucity of . The white, working class kid in George Layton's stories definitely didn't suffer any adult disregard from his domineering mum. Nor did he do not have imagination or goal.

Education was the escape of hardship. 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 greatest present we can bestow on any child. My grandmothers taught me to check out before I went to school, setting me on the early road 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 roadway, to little provincial theatres. I've got a much better idea.

If the Education Secretary wants to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she could begin by getting the phone and inviting George to explore schools, checking out from his short stories.

I truthfully think that if they might be convinced to search for from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and influenced by the adventures of a young kid not that different to them, in spite of the range in decades.

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

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old males or nicking people for publishing hurty words on the web, the cops are increasingly taking second jobs to supplement their income.

Some are working as painters and designers, others as scaffolders nand delivery chauffeurs. More intriguingly, sidelines likewise 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 don't expect there's any risk of them nicking a couple of shoplifters.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who bought an infant from a stranger are selfish in the extreme

First the frogs, now the octopuses The illegal migrant armada crossing the Channel daily may turn out to be the least of our issues. We now learn 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 organization.

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

We're also informed that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable invasive 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 nearby Holiday Inn soon.

Which'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 invest a useless 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 things 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 of us who wish to leave the European yuman rites convention, Surkeir would have made him Chief law officer.

Having recently claimed that the original ancient Britons were black, the woke revisionists now declare the Vikings were Muslims. Don't these people ever take a day of rest?