His reputation rests on his first memoir, Bang to Rights (1958), and his musical play Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be (1960), but much of the remainder of his work remains fresh and readable.
After an unsuccessful adoption, he was committed to a succession of children's homes in and around London—the story of which is recounted in his childhood autobiography, Banana Boy (1969).
After the homes came a succession of petty crimes for which he was imprisoned, finally leading to a three-year stretch at Camp Hill Prison on the Isle of Wight.
This adoption did not work out, so Frank was placed in the care of Dr Barnardo's on 24 March 1937 at Stepney HQ[1] where he stayed for a short time.
[5] After leaving Dr. Barnardo's, Frank was involved in petty crimes for which he was imprisoned, finally leading to a three-year stretch at Camp Hill Prison on the Isle of Wight.
Norman's several accounts of how he came to write are at variance with one another, but within a year of his release, he had published in Encounter magazine a 10,000-word extract from his prison memoir, Bang to Rights.
Championed at first by the editor of Encounter, Stephen Spender, and subsequently by Raymond Chandler, who wrote the foreword to Bang to Rights, Norman's literary success was assured.
After the success of Bang to Rights Norman wrote a draft of what was to become the musical Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be.
His last published work of non-fiction was The Fake's Progress written in collaboration with its subject Tom Keating, the art forger, and his wife Geraldine Norman, whom he married in 1971.