Saturday night at eight o'clock found me not at the movies 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 tough times.

Truth be told, I seldom endeavor south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, warned Arthur Daley: 'Great deal of extremely wicked people' in Sarf Lunnon.

Coincidentally, the occasion was a one-man show by my old mate George Layton, star, director, scriptwriter, author, whose finest hour - at least to my mind - was playing Des, the dodgy automobile mechanic in Minder.

George was reading from his collection of narratives embeded in the 1950s, when he was growing up in post-war Bradford. They're perfectly written, warm, amusing, evocative, a slice of history, a working-class variation of Richmal Crompton's Just William adventures.

The storylines are based on the trials and tribulations of a kid being raised by a single mom - an unconventional domesticity back then, unfortunately only too common today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually been in print because 1975 and discovered its method on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't help questioning, however, how often these marvelous texts are in class these days, in between teachers stuffing their pupils' little heads with trendy far-Left propaganda about 'white opportunity', manifest destiny and, of course, environment change.

The kids in the monochrome school photo 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' suggested living from hand to mouth, not needing to opt for a standard 50in flat screen TV, instead of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and just being able to pay for an iPhone 14 instead of the latest all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

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

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids gained their understanding mainly from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, kids experienced authentic challenge, not the poverty of aspiration and imagination which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live by means of their mobile phones, instead of roaming free and experiencing life to the complete.

Until the digital/social media revolution, children got their knowledge mostly from books. Yes, TV played a huge function, as did the movies, however no place near the supremacy of TikTok and other apps using instantaneous satisfaction in byte-sized portions.

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

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

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

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

They struggle with an absence of adult involvement and following scarceness of aspiration. The white, working class kid in George Layton's stories certainly didn't suffer any parental disregard from his imperious mum. Nor did he lack creativity or aspiration.

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 poverty in nearby pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the biggest gift we can bestow on any child. My grandmothers taught me to read before I went to school, setting me on the early road to a fulfilling profession at the wordface rather than 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 could start by choosing up the phone and welcoming George to visit schools, checking out from his narratives.

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

You never understand, 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 cops are progressively taking 2nd tasks to supplement their earnings.

Some are working as painters and designers, others as scaffolders nand shipment chauffeurs. 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 store has to take the biscuit.

It's also reported that some officers are working as supermarket checkout assistants. I don't suppose 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 complete stranger are self-centered in the extreme

First the frogs, now the octopuses The prohibited migrant armada crossing the Channel daily might turn out to be the least of our problems. We now discover 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 local fishermen out of company.

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 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 before long.

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

Take Labour's 'ambition' to invest a pathetic three percent 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 percent of things all is still pack all.

AN NHS cosmetic surgeon who compared Islamist terrorists to the Nazis has been struck off. If he 'd stated the very 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 recently claimed that the original ancient Britons were black, the woke deconstructionists now declare the Vikings were Muslims. Don't these individuals ever take a day off?