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

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Saturday night at 8 o'clock found me not at the films however at the Cinema Museum, a hidden gem near the Oval cricket ground in South London, located in a former workhouse which was quickly home to the young Charlie Chaplin after his mother fell on difficult times.

Truth be told, I rarely venture south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, alerted Arthur Daley: 'Lot of extremely 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 - a minimum of to my mind - was playing Des, the dodgy automobile mechanic in Minder.

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

The storylines are based upon the trials and adversities of a young boy being brought up by a single mother - a non-traditional domesticity back then, sadly just too typical today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually remained in print considering that 1975 and found its way on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.

I can't help questioning, however, how often these marvelous texts are utilized in class nowadays, in between instructors packing their students' little heads with trendy far-Left propaganda about 'white opportunity', colonialism and, obviously, climate change.

The kids in the monochrome school photograph which formed the backdrop to George's reading were definitely white, however nobody could have described them as privileged. Those were the days when 'austerity' suggested living from hand to mouth, not needing to settle for a fundamental 50in flat screen TV, instead of a 65in OLED Ultra model, and just being able to pay for an iPhone 14 rather than the most recent all-singing, all-dancing AI version.

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

Until the digital/social media transformation, kids acquired their understanding primarily from books, writes Littlejohn

In the 1950s, kids experienced authentic challenge, not the hardship of ambition and imagination which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live via their smart phones, rather of strolling complimentary and experiencing life to the full.

Until the digital/social media revolution, children gained their understanding mainly from books. Yes, TV played a big role, as did the movies, however nowhere near the domination of TikTok and other apps using instantaneous gratification in byte-sized chunks.

And how can squinting at the most recent CGI generated hit on a mobile phone a few inches wide ever compare to the sort of old-school, cinema, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience celebrated at the Cinema Museum?

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

One of the most dismaying things I have actually read just 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.

Not surprising that kid, and indeed adult, literacy levels have actually plunged alarmingly. All this has actually added to the stunning discovery that white, working class students - young boys in specific - are being left behind. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has actually been required to confess they have actually been 'betrayed' by the modern-day schools system.

They suffer from a lack of parental involvement and following scarceness of goal. The white, working class young boy in George Layton's stories certainly didn't suffer any parental neglect from his aggressive mum. Nor did he lack imagination or goal.

Education was the escape of poverty. 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 nearby pre-war Leeds.

Literacy is the greatest gift we can bestow on any kid. My grannies taught me to check out before I went to school, setting me on the early roadway to a satisfying career at the wordface instead of the relative drudgery of the work environment.

George Layton is considering taking his one-man show on the roadway, to little 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 honestly think that if they might be convinced to look up from their mobiles for an hour, they 'd be enthralled and inspired by the adventures of a young boy not that different to them, despite the range in decades.

You never 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 web, the police are significantly taking 2nd jobs to supplement their earnings.

Some are working as painters and designers, others as scaffolders nand delivery drivers. More intriguingly, sidelines likewise 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 needs to take the biscuit.

It's likewise reported that some officers are working as grocery store checkout assistants. I do not expect there's any danger of them nicking a few thiefs.

Mind how you go.

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Couple in their 70s who purchased a child 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 told that parakeets from India and Pakistan are an 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 soon.

And that's before I get to the buzzard that's been dive-bombing kids in a school play area 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 'ambition' to spend 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 things all is still stuff all.

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Having recently declared that the initial ancient Britons were black, the woke revisionists now declare the Vikings were Muslims. Don't these individuals ever take a day of rest?