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RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: White Working People Children have actually Been Betrayed

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

Truth be told, I rarely venture south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, Daley: 'Lot of very wicked people' in Sarf Lunnon.

Coincidentally, the celebration 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 cars and truck mechanic in Minder.

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

The stories are based on the trials and adversities of a boy being raised by a single mother - a non-traditional domesticity back then, sadly just too typical today. The Fib And Other Stories has been in print since 1975 and discovered its way on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't help questioning, however, how frequently these marvelous texts are used in class nowadays, in between instructors packing their students' little heads with trendy far-Left propaganda about 'white advantage', manifest destiny and, of course, climate change.

The kids in the monochrome school photo which formed the backdrop to George's reading were certainly white, however nobody might have described them as fortunate. Those were the days when 'austerity' indicated living from hand to mouth, not needing to opt for a basic 50in flat screen TV, instead of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and just having the ability to pay for an iPhone 14 rather than the most recent all-singing, all-dancing AI version.

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

Until the digital/social media transformation, children acquired their understanding mostly from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, kids experienced real difficulty, not the poverty of aspiration and creativity which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live by means of their cellphones, instead of wandering totally free and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media transformation, kids gained their understanding primarily from books. Yes, TV played a huge function, as did the motion pictures, but no place near the domination of TikTok and other apps providing pleasure principle in byte-sized pieces.

And how can squinting at the current CGI generated hit on a mobile phone a few inches large 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 best photos are stated to be on the radio, even better pictures can be discovered in the printed word.

Among the most depressing things I've read 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 marvel kid, and undoubtedly adult, literacy levels have plummeted alarmingly. All this has added to the shocking revelation that white, working class pupils - kids in particular - are being left. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been forced to admit they have been 'betrayed' by the contemporary schools system.

They suffer from an absence of adult involvement and ensuing scarceness of goal. The white, working class boy in George Layton's stories definitely didn't suffer any parental disregard from his domineering mum. Nor did he do not have creativity or aspiration.

Education was the method out of hardship. It produced significant wordsmiths like George, in post-war Bradford - and our own dear Keith Waterhouse, late of this parish, who grew up in poverty in nearby pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the greatest gift we can bestow on any kid. My grandmothers taught me to check out before I went to school, setting me on the early roadway to a fulfilling profession at the wordface rather than the relative drudgery of the workplace.

George Layton is thinking about taking his one-man program on the road, to small 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 begin by picking up the phone and inviting George to tour schools, reading from his short stories.

I honestly think that if they could be convinced to look up from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and motivated by the experiences of a young kid not that different to them, despite the distance in decades.

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

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old males or nicking individuals for publishing hurty words on the internet, the authorities are progressively taking 2nd tasks to supplement their earnings.

Some are working as painters and designers, others as scaffolders nand shipment drivers. 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 store has to take the biscuit.

It's likewise reported that some officers are working as grocery store checkout assistants. I don't expect there's any threat 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 self-centered 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 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 also informed that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable intrusive 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 eventually.

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

Take Labour's 'aspiration' to invest a useless 3 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 actually been struck off. If he 'd stated the same about those people who desire to leave the European yuman rites convention, Surkeir would have made him Attorney general of the United States.

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