Saturday night at eight o'clock discovered me not at the films however at the Cinema Museum, a surprise 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 informed, I seldom venture south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, alerted Arthur Daley: 'Lot of really wicked individuals' in Sarf Lunnon.

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

George read from his collection of brief stories embeded in the 1950s, when he was maturing in post-war Bradford. They're beautifully written, warm, amusing, expressive, a piece of history, a working-class version of Richmal Crompton's Just William adventures.

The storylines are based on the trials and adversities of a kid being raised by a single mother - a non-traditional family life at that time, sadly just too common today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually been in print because 1975 and discovered its way on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't help questioning, however, how often these remarkable texts are used in class these days, in between instructors packing their pupils' little heads with trendy far-Left propaganda about 'white opportunity', colonialism and, naturally, environment modification.

The kids in the monochrome school picture which formed the backdrop to George's reading were definitely white, but nobody could have described them as fortunate. 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 only being able to manage an iPhone 14 instead of the most 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 fitness instructors.

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

In the 1950s, kids experienced genuine difficulty, not the hardship of aspiration and creativity which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live through their cellphones, rather of roaming totally free and experiencing life to the complete.

Until the digital/social media revolution, children got their knowledge primarily from books. Yes, TV played a big function, as did the movies, but no place near the dominance of TikTok and other apps providing instantaneous satisfaction in byte-sized portions.

And how can squinting at the current CGI created smash hit on a cellular phone a few inches large ever compare with the kind of old-school, huge screen, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience commemorated at the Cinema Museum?

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

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

Not surprising that kid, and certainly adult, literacy levels have plunged amazingly. All this has contributed to the stunning discovery that white, working class students - kids in specific - are being left behind. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has actually been forced to confess they have been 'betrayed' by the modern schools system.

They struggle with an absence of parental involvement and consequent scarceness of aspiration. The white, working class young boy in George Layton's stories certainly didn't suffer any adult overlook from his imperious mum. Nor did he do not have creativity or aspiration.

Education was the escape of hardship. It produced significant wordsmiths like George, in post-war Bradford - and our own dear Keith Waterhouse, late of this parish, who matured in hardship in close-by pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the best gift we can bestow on any child. My grandmas taught me to read before I went to school, setting me on the early roadway to a satisfying career at the wordface instead of the relative drudgery of the office.

George Layton is thinking about taking his one-man program on the roadway, to little provincial theatres. I've got a much better concept.

If the Education Secretary desires to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she might start by getting the phone and inviting George to tour schools, checking out from his narratives.

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

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

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old guys or nicking individuals for posting hurty words on the internet, the cops are significantly taking sidelines to supplement their income.

Some are working as and designers, others as scaffolders nand shipment chauffeurs. More intriguingly, 2nd jobs also include a DJ (PC Hammer, anybody?) and a reiki instructor, whatever that is.

My favourites are beekeeper and kickboxing coach, although the copper running a tea shop needs to take the biscuit.

It's also reported that some officers are working as supermarket checkout assistants. I do not expect there's any risk of them nicking a couple of shoplifters.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who purchased a child from a complete stranger are selfish in the extreme

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 devouring crab stocks off the coast of Devon and Cornwall and threatening to put local anglers out of organization.

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 intrusive types' having 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 nearest Holiday Inn eventually.

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 problem with home-grown Stuka-style pigeons without importing kamikaze buzzards.

Take Labour's 'ambition' to invest a useless 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 will not be any GDP left in a few years' time. And three percent of stuff all is still pack all.

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

Having recently declared 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?