twentyfiveseven

Saturday night at 8 o'clock discovered me not at the motion pictures however at the Cinema Museum, a surprise gem near the Oval cricket ground in South London, situated in a former workhouse which was briefly home to the young after his mom fell on tough times.

Truth be informed, I rarely endeavor south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, alerted Arthur Daley: 'Great deal of extremely 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 - at least to my mind - was playing Des, the dodgy cars and truck mechanic in Minder.

George was checking out from his collection of short stories embeded in the 1950s, when he was growing up in post-war Bradford. They're wonderfully written, warm, funny, evocative, a slice of history, a working-class version of Richmal Crompton's Just William adventures.

The storylines are based upon the trials and tribulations of a young boy being raised by a single mom - a non-traditional family life at that time, unfortunately just too common today. The Fib And Other Stories has been in print considering that 1975 and found its way on to the school curriculum, where it stays today.

I can't help wondering, however, how typically these remarkable texts are utilized in class these days, in between teachers stuffing their pupils' little heads with trendy far-Left propaganda about 'white advantage', manifest destiny and, obviously, environment modification.

The kids in the monochrome school photo which formed the backdrop to George's reading were certainly white, however no one might have described them as privileged. Those were the days when 'austerity' implied living from hand to mouth, not needing to settle for a fundamental 50in flat screen TV, instead of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and only having the ability to manage an iPhone 14 rather than the current all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

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

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids gained their knowledge primarily from books, composes Littlejohn

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

Until the digital/social media revolution, children acquired their understanding primarily from books. Yes, TV played a huge role, as did the films, however nowhere near the domination of TikTok and other apps offering pleasure principle in byte-sized chunks.

And how can squinting at the most recent CGI produced smash hit on a cellular phone a couple of inches large 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 very best photos are said to be on the radio, even much better photos can be found 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 much shorter attention periods of today's children.

No wonder kid, and certainly adult, literacy levels have actually dropped amazingly. All this has actually contributed to the stunning revelation that white, working class students - boys in specific - are being left. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been forced to confess they have actually been 'betrayed' by the modern-day schools system.

They struggle with an absence of adult participation and ensuing paucity of goal. The white, working class young boy in George Layton's stories definitely didn't suffer any adult neglect from his prideful mum. Nor did he do not have imagination or goal.

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

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

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

If the Education Secretary wants to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she might begin by picking up the phone and inviting George to tour schools, checking out from his short stories.

I truthfully believe that if they could be persuaded to search for from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and inspired by the experiences of a young kid not that various to them, in spite of the distance in years.

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 people for publishing hurty words on the web, the authorities are increasingly taking second jobs to supplement their income.

Some are working as painters and designers, others as scaffolders nand shipment drivers. More intriguingly, second jobs also include a DJ (PC Hammer, anyone?) 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 don't expect there's any threat of them nicking a few thiefs.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who bought a child from a stranger are self-centered in the extreme

First the frogs, now the octopuses The prohibited migrant armada crossing the Channel daily might turn out to be 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 local anglers out of company.

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 species' 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 soon.

Which'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 'aspiration' to spend a pathetic three 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 won't be any GDP left in a few years' time. And three percent of things 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 want to leave the European yuman rites convention, Surkeir would have made him Chief law officer.

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