Early and Personal Life
Norman Joseph Wisdom was born in the Marylebone district of London. His parents were Frederick, a chauffeur, and Maud Wisdom (née Targett), a dressmaker who often worked for West End theatres. The couple married in Marylebone on 15 July 1912. Wisdom had an elder brother, Frederick Thomas "Fred" Wisdom (13 December 1912 – 1 July 1971). The family resided at 91 Fernhead Road, Maida Vale, London W9, where they slept in one room. Wisdom quipped, "I was born in very sorry circumstances. Both of my parents were very sorry." He and his brother were raised in severe poverty and were frequently hit by their father. Wisdom was married twice. His first wife was Doreen Brett, whom he married in 1941. By 1944 they had separated when Doreen gave birth to a son, Michael (born 1944), fathered by Albert Gerald Hardwick, a telephone engineer. The marriage was dissolved in 1946.
He married his second wife, Freda Isobel Simpson, a dancer, in 1947; they had two children: Nicholas (born 1953, who later played first-class cricket for Sussex) and Jacqueline (born 1954). The couple divorced in 1969 and Wisdom was granted full custody of the children. Freda Wisdom died in Brighton in 1992.
Wisdom was a lifelong supporter and a former board member of football team Brighton and Hove Albion. He also liked Everton and Newcastle United, first declaring his support for the Merseyside club when appearing in the matchday programme in an interview in 1974. He enjoyed golf and was a member of the Grand Order of Water Rats. Popular in the Isle of Man, he lived for 27 years in a house in Andreas named Ballalough (Manx language for "place of the lake", though really a humorous corruption of the English "belly laugh"). He was an Honorary Member of the Winkle Club, a famous charity in Hastings, East Sussex.
A lover of cars, he owned a 1987 Rolls-Royce Silver Spirit and a Jaguar S-Type, until his age and declining mental health meant he failed a Department of Transport fitness-to-drive test, and they were sold in September 2005. A supporter of various charities including Mencap, in 2005 Wisdom starred in a video for the Manx girl group Twisted Angels, for their single "LA", in support of the local charity Project 21.
During the 1960s he was involved in a famous legal case (Wisdom v Chamberlain)(1968) in which he was pursued by the Inland Revenue for tax on profits made from the sale of silver bullion he had bought when concerned about the further devaluation of sterling. He contended that it was an investment, but the court held that it had been a trading venture and was duly chargeable to income tax.
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