RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: White Working Class Children have Been Betrayed

Saturday night at 8 o’clock found me not at the motion pictures but at the Cinema Museum, a covert gem near the Oval cricket ground in South London, located in a previous workhouse which was briefly home to the young Charlie Chaplin after his mom fell on tough times.

Truth be informed, I seldom venture south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, cautioned Arthur Daley: ‘Great deal of very 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 vehicle mechanic in Minder.

George read from his collection of narratives set in the 1950s, when he was maturing in post-war Bradford. They’re beautifully composed, warm, funny, evocative, a slice of history, a working-class variation of Richmal Crompton’s Just William experiences.

The stories are based on the trials and tribulations of a young boy being brought up by a single mother — a non-traditional family life at that time, unfortunately only too typical today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually been in print since 1975 and found its way on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can’t help wondering, however, how often these marvelous texts are used in class these days, in between teachers packing their students’ little heads with stylish far-Left propaganda about ‘white benefit’, colonialism and, of course, environment modification.

The kids in the monochrome school picture which formed the backdrop to George’s reading were certainly white, however nobody could have described them as fortunate. Those were the days when ‘austerity’ suggested living from hand to mouth, not having to go for a standard 50in flat screen TV, rather of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and only being able to afford an iPhone 14 instead of the current all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

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

Until the digital/social media transformation, kids got their knowledge primarily from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, children experienced genuine difficulty, not the hardship of ambition and imagination which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live by means of their cellphones, rather of strolling complimentary and experiencing life to the complete.

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids acquired their knowledge mostly from books. Yes, TV played a huge function, as did the movies, but no place near the supremacy of TikTok and other apps offering immediate satisfaction in byte-sized pieces.

And how can squinting at the most current CGI created smash hit on a cellphone a couple of inches broad ever compare with the type of old-school, cinema, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience commemorated at the Cinema Museum?

It can’t. Just as the finest images are stated to be on the radio, even better photos can be discovered in the printed word.

One of the most depressing things I have actually read recently was the author Anthony Horowitz complaining the reality that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the much shorter attention periods these days’s kids.

No wonder kid, and indeed adult, literacy levels have actually plummeted amazingly. All this has contributed 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 admit they have been ‘betrayed’ by the contemporary schools system.

They struggle with a lack of adult participation and following scarceness of goal. The white, working class kid in George Layton’s definitely didn’t suffer any parental overlook from his domineering mum. Nor did he do not have imagination or aspiration.

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

Literacy is the greatest present 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 instead of the relative drudgery of the office.

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

If the Education Secretary wishes to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she might begin by getting the phone and welcoming George to explore schools, checking out from his narratives.

I truthfully believe that if they could be persuaded to look up from their mobiles for an hour, they ‘d be enthralled and motivated by the experiences of a young boy not that various to them, despite the distance in years.

You never ever 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 publishing hurty words on the internet, the police are significantly taking second jobs to supplement their income.

Some are working as painters and decorators, others as scaffolders nand delivery motorists. More intriguingly, second tasks 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 store has to take the biscuit.

It’s also reported that some officers are working as supermarket checkout assistants. I don’t suppose there’s any threat of them nicking a few shoplifters.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who purchased a child from a stranger are self-centered 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 local fishermen out of service.

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 actually 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 closest Holiday Inn before long.

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’ve got enough trouble with home-grown Stuka-style pigeons without importing kamikaze buzzards.

Take Labour’s ‘ambition’ to invest a worthless three per cent of GDP on defence by the year 2525 with a shovel-load of Maldon’s finest. The method Rachel From Complaints is taxing the economy to death, there will not be any GDP left in a couple of years’ time. And 3 per cent of things all is still pack all.

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

Having just recently claimed that the initial ancient Britons were black, the woke deconstructionists now declare the Vikings were Muslims. Don’t these people ever take a day off?