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

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Saturday night at eight o'clock found me not at the films but at the Cinema Museum, a hidden 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 mother fell on difficult times.

Truth be told, I seldom venture south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, warned Arthur Daley: 'Lot of really 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 vehicle mechanic in Minder.

George read from his collection of short stories embeded in the 1950s, when he was growing up in post-war Bradford. They're magnificently 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 brought up by a single mom - a non-traditional family life back then, regretfully just too common today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually been in print since 1975 and discovered its way on to the school curriculum, where it stays today.

I can't help questioning, however, how often these marvelous texts are used in class these days, in between teachers packing their pupils' little heads with stylish far-Left propaganda about 'white benefit', manifest destiny and, obviously, climate change.

The kids in the monochrome school picture which formed the backdrop to George's reading were definitely white, however no one could have described them as privileged. Those were the days when 'austerity' suggested living from hand to mouth, not needing to go for a fundamental 50in flat screen TV, rather of a 65in OLED Ultra model, and just having the ability to manage an iPhone 14 instead of the current all-singing, all-dancing AI version.

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

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids acquired their understanding mostly from books, composes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, kids experienced real challenge, not the hardship of aspiration and creativity which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live by means of their smart phones, rather of roaming complimentary and experiencing life to the complete.

Until the digital/social media revolution, kids got their knowledge primarily from books. Yes, TV played a big function, as did the films, however no place near the supremacy of TikTok and other apps offering instant gratification in byte-sized portions.

And how can squinting at the current CGI produced smash hit on a mobile phone a couple of inches wide ever compare to the type 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 pictures are stated to be on the radio, even better pictures can be found in the printed word.

One of the most dismaying things I have actually read recently was the author Anthony Horowitz complaining the truth that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the shorter attention periods of today's kids.

No wonder child, and certainly adult, literacy levels have plunged amazingly. All this has actually contributed to the shocking discovery that white, working class students - kids in specific - are being left behind. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been required to confess they have actually been 'betrayed' by the modern-day schools system.

They experience an absence of parental participation and following paucity of goal. The white, working class boy in George Layton's stories definitely didn't suffer any adult disregard from his prideful mum. Nor did he lack creativity or goal.

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 close-by 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 career at the wordface instead of the relative drudgery of the work environment.

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

If the Education Secretary wants to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she might start by getting the phone and welcoming George to visit schools, checking out from his short stories.

I truthfully think 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 range in years.

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

When they're not tasering one-legged 92-year-old men or nicking people for publishing hurty words on the web, the police are significantly taking sidelines to supplement their earnings.

Some are working as painters and designers, others as scaffolders nand delivery drivers. More intriguingly, second tasks likewise consist of 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 has to take the biscuit.

It's also reported that some officers are working as supermarket checkout assistants. I do not suppose there's any threat of them nicking a couple of thiefs.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who bought a baby from a complete stranger are selfish in the severe

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

We're likewise informed that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 'unstoppable intrusive species' having actually escaped 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 kids in a school playground in Romford, Essex. Where the hell did that come from?

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

Take Labour's 'aspiration' to invest a pathetic 3 percent 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 won't be any GDP left in a few years' time. And three 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 said 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 recently declared that the initial ancient Britons were black, the woke revisionists now allege the were Muslims. Don't these people ever take a day of rest?