twentyfiveseven

Saturday night at eight o'clock found me not at the films however at the Cinema Museum, a covert gem near the Oval cricket ground in South London, located in a former workhouse which was quickly home to the young Charlie Chaplin after his mom fell on difficult times.

Truth be told, I hardly ever endeavor south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, cautioned Arthur Daley: 'Lot 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 - a minimum of to my mind - was playing Des, the dodgy vehicle mechanic in Minder.

George was checking out from his collection of brief stories set in the 1950s, when he was maturing in post-war Bradford. They're magnificently composed, warm, amusing, expressive, a slice of history, a working-class variation of Richmal Crompton's Just William experiences.

The storylines are based upon the trials and adversities of a young boy being brought up by a single mom - a non-traditional family life back then, sadly just too common today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually been in print given that 1975 and discovered its method on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't help questioning, though, how often these wonderful texts are used in class these days, in between teachers stuffing their students' little heads with trendy far-Left propaganda about 'white advantage', manifest destiny and, obviously, environment change.

The kids in the monochrome school photograph which formed the background to George's reading were definitely white, however no one might have explained them as privileged. Those were the days when 'austerity' meant living from hand to mouth, not needing to go for a standard 50in flat screen TV, instead of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and just being able to pay for an iPhone 14 rather than the newest all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

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

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids gained their understanding primarily from books, writes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, kids experienced genuine hardship, not the hardship of ambition and imagination which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live through their cellphones, rather of strolling complimentary and experiencing life to the complete.

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids acquired their understanding mostly from books. Yes, TV played a huge function, as did the films, but no place near the dominance of TikTok and other apps offering pleasure principle in byte-sized pieces.

And how can squinting at the latest CGI generated hit on a mobile phone a few inches large ever compare with the kind of old-school, cinema, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience celebrated at the Cinema Museum?

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

Among the most dismaying things I've checked out just recently was the author Anthony Horowitz regreting the truth that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the much shorter attention spans these days's children.

Not surprising that child, and undoubtedly adult, literacy levels have actually plummeted amazingly. All this has actually contributed to the shocking revelation that white, working class pupils - young boys in particular - are being left. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been forced to confess they have actually been 'betrayed' by the modern schools system.

They experience a lack of adult involvement and following paucity of goal. The white, working class kid in George Layton's stories certainly didn't suffer any parental neglect from his domineering 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 biggest gift we can bestow on any kid. My grandmothers taught me to read before I went to school, me on the early road to a satisfying profession at the wordface instead of 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 wishes to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she could start by picking up the phone and inviting George to visit schools, checking out from his narratives.

I honestly believe that if they might be persuaded to look up from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and influenced by the experiences of a young boy not that various to them, despite the range in decades.

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

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

Some are working as painters and decorators, others as scaffolders nand shipment motorists. More intriguingly, sidelines also consist of 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 has 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 danger of them nicking a couple of shoplifters.

Mind how you go.

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

First the frogs, now the octopuses The unlawful migrant armada crossing the Channel daily might end up being the least of our problems. 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 regional anglers out of business.

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

We're also told that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable intrusive types' having 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 nearest Holiday Inn in the past long.

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

Take Labour's 'aspiration' to invest a worthless 3 percent 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 3 percent 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 want to leave the European yuman rites convention, Surkeir would have made him Attorney General.

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