Sir Norman Wisdom, the successful screen comic who died recently aged 95, got his uniform for his unique eternal schoolboy character from a charity shop in Scarborough in the 1950’s.

This comprised a checked jacket three sizes too small for him with a checked peaked cap and almost matching tie, both worn askew, and was perfect for his brand of slapstick visual humour. The plots for his films featured him as the lovable idiot underdog who always triumphed over the better-off and got the girl.

According to an obituary in the Daily Telegraph his humour looks dated today, except in other countries where it is often revered as deliciously subversive.