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

Saturday night at 8 o'clock found me not at the motion pictures 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 endeavor south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, cautioned Arthur Daley: 'Lot of really 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 - at least to my mind - was playing Des, the dodgy vehicle mechanic in Minder.

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

The stories are based upon the trials and tribulations of a boy being raised by a single mother - an unconventional family life back then, sadly only too typical today. The Fib And Other Stories has remained in print since 1975 and found its way on to the school curriculum, where it stays today.

I can't help questioning, however, how frequently these remarkable texts are used in class nowadays, in between instructors stuffing their pupils' little heads with stylish far-Left propaganda about 'white advantage', colonialism and, obviously, environment modification.

The kids in the monochrome school photograph which formed the backdrop to George's reading were certainly white, but no one could have described them as privileged. Those were the days when 'austerity' meant living from hand to mouth, not having to go for a standard 50in flat screen TV, rather of a 65in OLED Ultra design, and just having the ability to manage an iPhone 14 rather than the newest all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.

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

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

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

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids gained their understanding primarily from books. Yes, TV played a big function, as did the films, but nowhere near the dominance of TikTok and other apps offering pleasure principle in byte-sized portions.

And how can squinting at the newest CGI generated smash hit on a cellphone a couple of inches wide ever compare with the sort of old-school, huge screen, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience commemorated at the Cinema Museum?

It can't. Just as the best pictures are said to be on the radio, even much better images can be discovered in the printed word.

One of the most dismal things I've checked out just recently was the author Anthony Horowitz complaining the fact that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the shorter attention spans these days's kids.

No wonder child, and undoubtedly adult, literacy levels have actually dropped alarmingly. All this has contributed to the shocking discovery that white, working class pupils - kids in particular - are being left behind. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been forced to confess they have actually been 'betrayed' by the modern schools system.

They struggle with an absence of adult participation and following scarceness of aspiration. The white, working class boy in George Layton's stories certainly didn't suffer any adult neglect from his prideful mum. Nor did he lack creativity or aspiration.

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

Literacy is the best gift we can bestow on any child. My grannies taught me to read 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 work environment.

George Layton is thinking about taking his one-man show on the road, to little provincial theatres. I've got a much better idea.

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 explore schools, checking out from his brief stories.

I truthfully believe that if they might be encouraged to look up from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and inspired by the adventures of a young kid not that various to them, in spite of the range in decades.

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

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

Some are working as painters and designers, others as scaffolders nand shipment drivers. More intriguingly, 2nd jobs 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 shop needs to take the biscuit.

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

Mind how you go.

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

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

We're likewise informed that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable intrusive 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 nearby Holiday Inn before long.

And that's before I get to the buzzard that's been dive-bombing kids in a school play ground in Romford, Essex. Where the hell did that come from?

We have actually got enough trouble with home-grown Stuka-style pigeons without buzzards.

Take Labour's 'ambition' to spend a pitiful 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 few years' time. And 3 percent of things 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 very same about those of us who desire to leave the European yuman rites convention, Surkeir would have made him Chief law officer.

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