Norman Wisdom - Armed Forces

Armed Forces

After a period in a children's home in Deal, Kent, Wisdom ran away when he was 11 but returned to become an errand boy in a grocer's on leaving school at 13. In 1929, he walked (by his own account) to Cardiff, Wales, where he became a cabin boy in the Merchant Navy. Wisdom had been kicked out of his home by his father and became homeless. He also worked as a coal miner, waiter and page boy. He first enlisted into the King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster), but his mother got him "unenlisted" as he was under age. He later re-enlisted as a drummer boy in the 10th Royal Hussars of the British Army and in 1930 was posted to Lucknow, in the United Provinces of British India, as a bandsman. There he gained an education certificate, rode horses, became the flyweight boxing champion of the British Army in India and learned to play the trumpet and clarinet. While performing a comedy boxing routine in an army gym, Wisdom discovered he had a talent for entertainment and began to develop his skills as a musician and stage entertainer. After leaving the army, he learned to drive and worked as a private hire car driver. Having improved his diction in the army, he also took a job as a night telephone operator.