Welwyn Garden City teacher and actor Clive Wiseman dies aged 85

Born in 1939, Clive attended George Green's Grammar School in East London, before going on to study languages at Birmingham University.

It was languages that gave him one of his two careers, as he went on to became a teacher, initially for schools in London.

Fluent in French and German, he was a natural linguist and set his sights on teaching.

Eventually he moved to Ware and began working in Welwyn Garden City, where he taught modern languages throughout the 70s and 80s.

Clive taught languages at two schools in Welwyn Garden City (Image: Jude Wiseman)

Paying tribute, Clive's wife Jude said: "He was extremely loving, more so than anyone I've met. He was a true one off, in ways it's hard to explain properly.

"He had an unusual sense of humour and a great ability to make himself and others laugh."

Clive taught at The Howard School - which was renamed the Sir John Newsom School before closing in 1998 - and later worked part time at Monk's Walk School.

While teaching, he became involved with acting and became a mainstay at The Barn Theatre.

Clive loved to write, writing several plays that were performed at the Barn, as well as unusually, a trilogy on anthropomorphic birds, a fascination of his.

Clive wrote and performed in several plays at the Barn Theatre (Image: Jude Wiseman)

Away from the performing arts, he was a keen golf player.

He was a popular teacher and a larger than life figure who had the ability to make people laugh both on and off the stage.

According to his wife Jude, Clive could have pursued acting professionally but played it safe by sticking with teaching, citing his family and mortgage.

Clive had two children, a son named Howard and a daughter named Ingrid, named after the Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman.

Ingrid followed in her father's footsteps, briefly pursuing a career in acting before marrying and focusing on her career.

Clive died in May at the age of 85 after developing complications from an infection.

For the last two years of his life he lived with vascular dementia.