Saturday night at eight o'clock discovered me not at the movies however at the Cinema Museum, a covert 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 told, I seldom venture south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, warned Arthur Daley: 'Lot of really wicked individuals' in Sarf Lunnon.

Coincidentally, the occasion was a one-man program by my old mate George Layton, actor, director, scriptwriter, author, whose finest hour - a minimum of to my mind - was playing Des, the dodgy car mechanic in Minder.

George read from his collection of narratives set in the 1950s, when he was maturing in post-war Bradford. They're wonderfully written, 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 young boy being brought up by a single mother - an unconventional household life back then, regretfully only too typical today. The Fib And Other Stories has remained in print since 1975 and discovered its way on to the school curriculum, where it stays today.

I can't help questioning, though, how typically these wonderful texts are utilized in class these days, in between instructors stuffing their pupils' little heads with stylish far-Left propaganda about 'white opportunity', colonialism and, obviously, environment change.

The kids in the monochrome school photograph which formed the backdrop to George's reading were definitely white, but no one might have explained them as privileged. Those were the days when 'austerity' suggested living from hand to mouth, not having to go for a fundamental 50in flat screen TV, rather of a 65in OLED Ultra model, and just having the ability to manage an iPhone 14 rather than the newest all-singing, all-dancing AI version.

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

Until the digital/social media transformation, children gained their knowledge mainly from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, kids experienced real hardship, not the hardship of aspiration and creativity which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live via their smart phones, instead of strolling free and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media revolution, children gained their knowledge mainly from books. Yes, TV played a big function, as did the films, but nowhere near the domination of TikTok and other apps offering pleasure principle in byte-sized chunks.

And how can squinting at the latest CGI generated smash hit on a mobile phone a few inches broad ever compare to the type of old-school, huge screen, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience celebrated at the Cinema Museum?

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

One of the most dismaying things I've checked out recently was the author Anthony Horowitz complaining the truth that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the shorter attention spans of today's children.

No wonder kid, and undoubtedly adult, literacy levels have actually dropped amazingly. All this has actually contributed to the stunning discovery that white, working class pupils - kids in specific - are being left behind. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been required to confess they have actually been 'betrayed' by the modern schools system.

They struggle with an absence of parental involvement and consequent scarceness of aspiration. The white, working class young boy in George Layton's stories definitely didn't suffer any parental neglect from his imperious mum. Nor did he do not have 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 poverty in nearby pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the greatest present we can bestow on any kid. My grandmothers 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 thinking about taking his one-man program on the road, to little provincial theatres. I have actually got a better idea.

If the Education Secretary wishes to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she could begin by getting the phone and inviting George to explore schools, reading from his narratives.

I truthfully think that if they could be convinced to look up from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and inspired by the adventures of a young boy not that different to them, despite 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 men or nicking people for posting hurty words on the web, the authorities are progressively taking sidelines to supplement their earnings.

Some are working as painters and designers, others as scaffolders nand delivery chauffeurs. More intriguingly, 2nd tasks 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 also reported that some officers are working as supermarket checkout assistants. I do not expect there's any threat of them nicking a couple of thiefs.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who purchased a baby from a stranger are selfish in the extreme

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 discover 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 helping themselves to what's left.

We're likewise informed that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable invasive types' having actually 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 in the past long.

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've got enough trouble with home-grown Stuka-style pigeons without importing kamikaze buzzards.

Take Labour's 'aspiration' to spend a pitiful 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 will not be any GDP left in a couple of years' time. And 3 per cent of stuff all is still pack all.

AN NHS 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 original ancient Britons were black, the woke revisionists now declare the Vikings were Muslims. Don't these people ever take a day off?