Saturday night at 8 o'clock found me not at the movies but at the Cinema Museum, a surprise gem near the Oval cricket ground in South London, located in a former workhouse which was briefly home to the young Charlie Chaplin after his mother fell on difficult times.

Truth be told, I rarely venture 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, 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 narratives embeded in the 1950s, when he was growing up in post-war Bradford. They're beautifully composed, warm, amusing, evocative, a slice of history, a working-class version of Richmal Crompton's Just William experiences.

The stories are based on the trials and adversities of a kid being raised by a single mom - an unconventional domesticity at that time, unfortunately just too common today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually been in print considering that 1975 and discovered its way on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't assist questioning, though, how frequently these marvelous texts are used in class nowadays, in between teachers packing their pupils' little heads with stylish far-Left propaganda about 'white opportunity', manifest destiny and, obviously, climate modification.

The kids in the monochrome school photograph which formed the backdrop to George's reading were definitely white, however nobody might have described them as privileged. Those were the days when 'austerity' meant living from hand to mouth, not needing to choose a basic 50in flat screen TV, rather of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and just being able to manage an iPhone 14 rather than the current all-singing, all-dancing AI version.

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

Until the digital/social media transformation, children gained their knowledge mainly from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, children experienced authentic hardship, not the hardship of ambition and creativity which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live by means of their mobile phones, instead of strolling complimentary and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media transformation, children acquired their understanding mainly from books. Yes, TV played a huge role, as did the movies, however no place near the domination of TikTok and other apps using pleasure principle in byte-sized chunks.

And how can squinting at the current CGI generated blockbuster on a mobile phone a couple of inches wide ever compare to the sort of old-school, big screen, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience commemorated at the Cinema Museum?

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

One of the most dismaying things I've read recently was the author Anthony Horowitz regreting the reality that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the shorter attention periods these days's children.

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

They suffer from a lack of adult involvement and ensuing paucity of goal. The white, working class kid in George Layton's stories definitely didn't suffer any adult neglect from his domineering mum. Nor did he lack creativity or goal.

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 close-by pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the greatest gift we can bestow on any kid. My grandmas 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 road, to little provincial theatres. I have actually got a better idea.

If the Education Secretary wishes 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 truthfully believe that if they could be persuaded to search for from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and influenced by the adventures of a young boy not that various to them, regardless of the range in years.

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

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old males or nicking people for publishing hurty words on the web, the authorities are progressively taking sidelines to supplement their income.

Some are working as painters and decorators, others as scaffolders nand delivery motorists. More intriguingly, sidelines also consist of 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 store needs to take the biscuit.

It's also reported that some officers are working as grocery store checkout assistants. I don't suppose there's any danger of them nicking a couple of shoplifters.

Mind how you go.

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

First the frogs, now the octopuses
The unlawful migrant armada crossing the Channel daily may end up being the least of our problems. 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 anglers out of business.

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

We're also told that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable invasive types' having left 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 soon.

Which's before I get to the buzzard that's been dive-bombing kids 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 'aspiration' to spend a useless three per cent 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 3 percent of stuff 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 same about those people who want to leave the European yuman rites convention, Surkeir would have made him Attorney General.

Having just recently declared that the original ancient Britons were black, the woke revisionists now declare the Vikings were Muslims. Don't these people ever take a day of rest?