Saturday night at eight 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 mom fell on hard times.

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

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

George was checking out from his collection of narratives embeded in the 1950s, when he was growing up in post-war Bradford. They're wonderfully composed, warm, amusing, expressive, a piece of history, a working-class version of Richmal Crompton's Just William experiences.

The storylines are based upon the trials and adversities of a young boy being raised by a single mom - an unconventional domesticity back then, regretfully only too typical today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually remained in print because 1975 and discovered its way on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't help wondering, however, how typically these remarkable texts are used in class nowadays, in between instructors packing their students' little heads with stylish far-Left propaganda about 'white opportunity', manifest destiny and, of course, climate change.

The kids in the monochrome school picture which formed the backdrop to George's reading were certainly white, but no one might have explained them as privileged. Those were the days when 'austerity' meant living from hand to mouth, not needing to opt for a fundamental 50in flat screen TV, instead of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and just having the ability to afford an iPhone 14 instead of the current all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

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

Until the digital/social media revolution, children acquired their knowledge primarily from books, writes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, kids experienced real challenge, not the hardship of aspiration and imagination which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live through their cellphones, instead of strolling complimentary and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media revolution, children gained their knowledge mainly from books. Yes, TV played a big role, as did the motion pictures, but nowhere near the dominance of TikTok and other apps using instant satisfaction in byte-sized chunks.

And how can squinting at the most recent CGI created blockbuster on a cellphone a couple of inches wide ever compare to the kind 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 images can be found in the printed word.

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

Not surprising that child, and certainly adult, literacy levels have plunged alarmingly. All this has actually added to the shocking discovery that white, working class pupils - kids in particular - are being left. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has actually been forced to confess they have actually been 'betrayed' by the contemporary schools system.

They experience an absence of adult involvement and consequent scarceness of goal. The white, working class kid in George Layton's stories definitely didn't suffer any parental neglect from his prideful mum. Nor did he lack imagination 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 best present we can bestow on any child. My grandmothers taught me to check out before I went to school, setting me on the early roadway to a satisfying career at the wordface rather than the relative drudgery of the work environment.

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

If the Education Secretary wishes to the betrayal of white, working class kids she might begin by selecting up the phone and welcoming George to visit schools, checking out from his short stories.

I honestly think that if they might be convinced to look up from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and motivated by the adventures of a young boy not that various to them, despite the range in years.

You never ever know, there may even be another Charlie Chaplin amongst 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 sidelines to supplement their earnings.

Some are working as painters and designers, 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 also reported that some officers are working as supermarket checkout assistants. I don't suppose there's any risk of them nicking a few thiefs.

Mind how you go.

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

First the frogs, now the octopuses The unlawful migrant armada crossing the Channel daily may 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 regional 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 also informed that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable invasive types' having actually 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 eventually.

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 have actually got enough problem with home-grown Stuka-style pigeons without importing kamikaze buzzards.

Take Labour's 'ambition' to invest a worthless 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 per cent of things all is still stuff all.

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

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