Islanders turn out to farewell Wisdom

The entire population of the Isle of Man, the adopted home of comedian Norman Wisdom, was invited to his funeral on Friday.

All 80,000 residents didn't make it, fortunately, for the sanity of the staff at Sir Norman's Bar at the Sefton Hotel in Douglas, named in his honour, where mourners were invited to toast his memory. But hundreds lined the streets along the route of the horse-drawn hearse to St George's church.

"He was just a bundle of fun," his son Nick said, issuing the recklessly general invitation.

Wisdom died peacefully in his sleep on October 4, aged 95, in the nursing home on the island where he had lived after becoming too frail to stay in the antiques-filled house he designed and lived in for 30 years.

His life on the island after decades as one of Britain's most beloved stage and film comedians and as a superstar in Albania, where his were the only western films allowed under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha, was in startling contrast to his early years in London.

After his parents divorced, he and his brother lived on their wits, so hungry they sometimes survived by stealing food. He left school at 13 to become a delivery boy and only realised his talent as an entertainer during his years in the Army.

The burial after the church service was a private family event but a memorial service is being organised for St Paul's Cathedral in London in February on what would have been his 96th birthday.