Saturday night at eight o'clock discovered me not at the movies however at the Cinema Museum, a concealed 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 tough times.

Truth be informed, I rarely endeavor south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, warned Arthur Daley: 'Lot of very wicked individuals' 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 read from his collection of narratives embeded in the 1950s, when he was growing up in post-war Bradford. They're wonderfully written, warm, funny, 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 boy being brought up by a single mother - a non-traditional domesticity back then, unfortunately only too common today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually remained in print since 1975 and found 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 opportunity', colonialism and, naturally, environment change.

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

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

Until the digital/social media transformation, kids gained their understanding mainly from books, writes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, kids experienced genuine difficulty, not the poverty of ambition and creativity which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live via their mobile phones, instead of wandering free and experiencing life to the complete.

Until the digital/social media transformation, kids gained their understanding mainly from books. Yes, TV played a huge function, as did the motion pictures, however nowhere near the dominance of TikTok and other apps offering pleasure principle in byte-sized pieces.

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

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

One of the most depressing things I have actually read just recently was the author Anthony Horowitz bemoaning the reality that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the shorter attention periods of today's children.

No surprise kid, and certainly adult, literacy levels have actually plunged alarmingly. All this has added to the shocking revelation that white, working class pupils - boys in specific - are being left behind. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has actually been required to confess they have been 'betrayed' by the modern-day schools system.

They struggle with a lack of adult participation and following paucity of aspiration. The white, working class kid in George Layton's stories definitely didn't suffer any parental disregard from his mum. Nor did he do not have 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 grew up in hardship in nearby pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the greatest present we can bestow on any kid. My grandmas taught me to read before I went to school, setting me on the early roadway to a satisfying profession at the wordface instead of the relative drudgery of the work environment.

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

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

I honestly think that if they could be encouraged to search for from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and motivated by the adventures of a young kid not that different to them, regardless of the distance 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 people for publishing hurty words on the web, the police are increasingly taking second tasks to supplement their earnings.

Some are working as painters and decorators, others as scaffolders nand shipment chauffeurs. More intriguingly, sidelines likewise consist of a DJ (PC Hammer, anybody?) 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 supermarket checkout assistants. I do not expect there's any danger of them nicking a couple of thiefs.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who bought an infant from a stranger are selfish in the severe

First the frogs, now the octopuses The prohibited migrant armada crossing the Channel daily might end up being the least of our issues. We now find out 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 fishermen out of service.

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

We're also informed that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable invasive species' 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 nearby Holiday Inn soon.

And that's before I get to the buzzard that's been dive-bombing children in a school play ground in Romford, Essex. Where the hell did that originated from?

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

Take Labour's 'ambition' to spend a pathetic 3 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 will not be any GDP left in a few years' time. And 3 percent of things all is still pack all.

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

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