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RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: White Working People Children have Been Betrayed > 자유게시판
RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: White Working People Children have Been Betrayed
작성일작성일: 2025-06-12 09:03Saturday night at eight o'clock found me not at the movies but at the Cinema Museum, a surprise gem near the Oval cricket ground in South London, located in a previous workhouse which was quickly home to the young Charlie Chaplin after his mom fell on tough times.
Truth be told, I hardly ever venture south of the river. As Dave, from the Winchester Club, alerted Arthur Daley: 'Lot of very wicked people' in Sarf Lunnon.
Coincidentally, the occasion 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 automobile mechanic in Minder.
George was reading from his collection of narratives embeded in the 1950s, when he was maturing in post-war Bradford. They're wonderfully composed, warm, funny, expressive, a piece of history, a working-class variation of Richmal Crompton's Just William experiences.
The stories are based upon the trials and adversities of a boy being raised by a single mom - an unconventional family life back then, regretfully only too common today. The Fib And Other Stories has actually been in print given that 1975 and found its method on to the school curriculum, where it remains today.
I can't assist questioning, though, how typically these glorious texts are used in class nowadays, in between instructors stuffing their pupils' little heads with trendy far-Left propaganda about 'white advantage', manifest destiny and, obviously, environment change.
The kids in the monochrome school which formed the backdrop to George's reading were definitely white, however nobody might have explained them as fortunate. Those were the days when 'austerity' suggested living from hand to mouth, not having to opt for a basic 50in flat screen TV, rather of a 65in OLED Ultra model, and only having the ability to pay for an iPhone 14 instead of the most recent all-singing, all-dancing AI variation.
Child hardship was real, 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 revolution, children got their understanding mainly from books, writes Littlejohn
In the 1950s, children experienced genuine difficulty, not the hardship of aspiration and creativity which blights this generation, through no fault of their own. Today, kids live by means of their cellphones, instead of roaming totally free and experiencing life to the complete.
Until the digital/social media revolution, children got their knowledge mainly from books. Yes, TV played a big role, as did the films, however nowhere near the dominance of TikTok and other apps offering instant satisfaction in byte-sized portions.
And how can squinting at the most recent CGI generated smash hit on a cellular phone a few inches broad ever compare with the type of old-school, cinema, Technicolor and Cinemascope, best-out-of-Hollywood experience celebrated at the Cinema Museum?
It can't. Just as the finest pictures are said to be on the radio, even much better pictures can be found in the printed word.
Among the most dismal things I have actually read recently was the author Anthony Horowitz complaining the fact that his 300-page books are far too long to engage the much shorter attention spans these days's kids.
No surprise child, and undoubtedly adult, literacy levels have plunged amazingly. All this has added to the shocking discovery that white, working class pupils - kids in particular - are being left. Even Labour's Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has been forced to admit they have actually been 'betrayed' by the contemporary schools system.
They struggle with a lack of parental participation and consequent paucity of goal. The white, working class young boy in George Layton's stories definitely didn't suffer any parental neglect from his domineering mum. Nor did he lack 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 grew up in hardship in close-by pre-war Leeds.
Literacy is the biggest gift we can bestow on any child. My grandmothers taught me to read before I went to school, setting me on the early roadway to a fulfilling profession at the wordface rather than the relative drudgery of the work environment.
George Layton is thinking about taking his one-man program on the roadway, to small provincial theatres. I have actually got a much better idea.
If the Education Secretary desires to reverse the betrayal of white, working class kids she could begin by getting the phone and welcoming George to explore schools, reading from his brief stories.
I honestly believe 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 kid not that various to them, regardless of the range in years.
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