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

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

Coincidentally, the event 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 car mechanic in Minder.

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

The stories are based on the trials and tribulations of a boy being raised by a single mom - an unconventional domesticity back then, sadly just too typical today. The Fib And Other Stories has remained in print since 1975 and found its way on to the school curriculum, where it stays today.

I can't help questioning, however, how frequently these marvelous texts are used in class nowadays, in between teachers packing their pupils' little heads with fashionable far-Left propaganda about 'white opportunity', colonialism and, naturally, climate modification.

The kids in the monochrome school photo which formed the backdrop to George's reading were definitely white, however nobody could 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 model, and only being able to manage an iPhone 14 instead of the latest all-singing, all-dancing AI version.

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

Until the digital/social media revolution, children acquired their understanding mainly from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, children experienced genuine hardship, not the hardship of ambition and imagination which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live by means of their smart phones, instead of wandering free and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media transformation, kids got their knowledge primarily from books. Yes, TV played a big role, as did the films, but no place near the domination of TikTok and other apps providing pleasure principle in byte-sized pieces.

And how can squinting at the newest CGI produced blockbuster on a cellphone a couple of inches broad ever compare to the sort of old-school, huge screen, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience celebrated at the Cinema Museum?

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

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

Not surprising that kid, and undoubtedly adult, literacy levels have actually dropped amazingly. All this has actually added to the stunning revelation that white, working - boys in specific - are being left behind. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has actually been required to admit they have been 'betrayed' by the modern schools system.

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

Education was the way out 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 poverty in close-by pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the best present we can bestow on any kid. My grandmas taught me to check out before I went to school, setting me on the early road to a satisfying profession at the wordface rather than the relative drudgery of the office.

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

If the Education Secretary wishes to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she could begin by getting the phone and welcoming George to explore schools, checking out from his short stories.

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

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

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old guys or nicking individuals for publishing hurty words on the web, the cops are progressively taking sidelines to supplement their earnings.

Some are working as painters and designers, others as scaffolders nand shipment motorists. More intriguingly, sidelines likewise include 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 needs 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 thiefs.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who purchased a child 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 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 regional anglers out of business.

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

We're likewise informed that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable intrusive types' having actually gotten away into the wild and are colonising cities as far afield as Plymouth and Aberdeen. No doubt we'll be putting them up in the closest Holiday Inn soon.

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

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

Take Labour's 'ambition' to spend a pitiful three 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 won't be any GDP left in a few years' time. And three percent of things all is still pack all.

AN NHS cosmetic surgeon who compared Islamist terrorists to the Nazis has actually been struck off. If he 'd said the very 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 just 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?