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

Truth be told, I rarely venture south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, alerted 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, star, director, scriptwriter, author, whose finest hour - a minimum of to my mind - was playing Des, the dodgy vehicle mechanic in Minder.

George was reading from his collection of narratives set in the 1950s, when he was growing up 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 on the trials and tribulations of a kid being brought up by a single mom - an unconventional family life at that time, unfortunately only too typical today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually remained in print considering that 1975 and discovered its way on to the school curriculum, where it stays today.

I can't help wondering, though, how often these remarkable texts are utilized in class these days, in between teachers stuffing their students' little heads with trendy far-Left propaganda about 'white benefit', colonialism and, obviously, environment modification.

The kids in the monochrome school picture which formed the backdrop to George's reading were definitely white, but nobody might have explained them as privileged. Those were the days when 'austerity' suggested living from hand to mouth, not needing to choose a fundamental 50in flat screen TV, rather of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and only being able to manage an iPhone 14 instead of the current all-singing, all-dancing AI version.

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

Until the digital/social media transformation, children gained their understanding mostly from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, children experienced authentic difficulty, not the poverty of aspiration and imagination which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live by means of their cellphones, instead of wandering totally free and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media revolution, children acquired their understanding mostly from books. Yes, TV played a huge function, as did the motion pictures, but no place near the dominance of TikTok and other apps offering instant gratification in byte-sized portions.

And how can squinting at the current CGI created hit on a mobile phone a couple of inches broad ever compare to the type of old-school, cinema, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience celebrated at the Cinema Museum?

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

One of the most depressing things I've 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 periods of today's children.

No surprise child, and certainly adult, literacy levels have actually dropped amazingly. All this has actually added to the shocking discovery that white, working class students - kids in specific - are being left. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been forced to admit they have been 'betrayed' by the modern schools system.

They experience a lack of parental participation and ensuing paucity of aspiration. The white, working class kid in George Layton's stories definitely didn't suffer any adult neglect from his domineering mum. Nor did he lack 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 matured in hardship in close-by pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the best 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 instead of the relative drudgery of the workplace.

George Layton is considering taking his one-man show on the roadway, to small provincial theatres. I have actually got a much better concept.

If the Education Secretary wishes to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she might begin by getting the phone and inviting George to visit schools, reading from his brief stories.

I truthfully think that if they might be convinced to look up from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and inspired by the experiences of a young kid not that various to them, regardless of the distance in decades.

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

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

Some are working as painters and decorators, others as scaffolders nand delivery chauffeurs. More intriguingly, sidelines likewise consist of 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 danger of them nicking a few shoplifters.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who purchased a child from a stranger are selfish 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 learn 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 fishermen 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 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 nearest Holiday Inn before long.

And that's before I get to the buzzard that's been dive-bombing kids in a school play area 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 'ambition' to invest a worthless 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 stuff all is still stuff all.

AN NHS cosmetic surgeon who compared Islamist terrorists to the Nazis has actually been struck off. If he 'd said the exact same about those people who wish to leave the European yuman rites convention, Surkeir would have made him Attorney General.

Having recently declared that the initial ancient Britons were black, the woke revisionists now declare the Vikings were Muslims. Don't these individuals ever take a day off?