RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: White Working Class Children have actually Been Betrayed > 상담신청

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Saturday night at 8 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 former workhouse which was briefly home to the young Charlie Chaplin after his mom fell on difficult times.

Truth be informed, I rarely endeavor south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, warned Arthur Daley: 'Lot of very wicked individuals' in Sarf Lunnon.

Coincidentally, the event was a one-man program by my old mate George Layton, actor, director, scriptwriter, author, whose finest hour - at least to my mind - was playing Des, the dodgy automobile mechanic in Minder.

George read from his collection of brief stories set in the 1950s, when he was growing up in post-war Bradford. They're perfectly written, warm, funny, expressive, 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 brought up by a single mom - an unconventional household life back then, sadly just too common today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually remained in print considering that 1975 and discovered its method on to the school curriculum, where it stays today.

I can't help wondering, however, how often these remarkable texts are used in class these days, in between teachers packing their students' little heads with fashionable far-Left propaganda about 'white advantage', manifest destiny and, naturally, environment change.

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

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

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

In the 1950s, kids experienced authentic hardship, not the poverty of aspiration and creativity which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live via their mobile phones, rather of roaming totally free and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media revolution, children gained their knowledge mostly from books. Yes, TV played a big function, as did the films, but no place near the domination of TikTok and other apps using instantaneous gratification in byte-sized chunks.

And how can squinting at the most recent CGI produced hit on a cellphone a couple of inches wide ever compare with the kind 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 said 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 truth that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the shorter attention spans these days's kids.

No marvel kid, and undoubtedly adult, literacy levels have plummeted alarmingly. All this has actually contributed to the stunning revelation that white, working class students - young boys in particular - 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 paucity of goal. The white, working class boy in George Layton's stories definitely didn't suffer any adult disregard from his imperious mum. Nor did he lack creativity or aspiration.

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 matured in poverty in neighboring pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the best present we can bestow on any child. My grandmothers taught me to read before I went to school, setting me on the early road to a fulfilling profession at the wordface instead of the relative drudgery of the work environment.

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

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

I honestly believe that if they might be persuaded to search for from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and motivated by the experiences of a young kid not that different to them, regardless of the range in years.

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

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old men or nicking individuals for publishing hurty words on the internet, the police are increasingly 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 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 supermarket checkout . I do not suppose there's any threat of them nicking a few shoplifters.

Mind how you go.

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

First the frogs, now the octopuses
The prohibited migrant armada crossing the Channel daily might end up being the least of our problems. We now find out that a fleet of foreign octopuses from the Med is feasting on crab stocks off the coast of Devon and Cornwall and threatening to put local fishermen out of service.

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

Take Labour's 'aspiration' to invest a pathetic 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 won't be any GDP left in a couple of years' time. And 3 per cent of stuff all is still pack all.