WHETHER it was writing a page lead for the East London Advertiser or a penning a hit song, Steve Harley has always had a way with words.

Years before Cockney Rebel, the musician originally had a career in journalism in the late 60s and early 70s.

He trained with Essex County Newspapers group and over three years he did stints at the Essex County Standard, the Braintree and Witham Times, the Maldon and Burnham Standard and the Colchester Evening Gazette before moving back to London to work for the East London Advertiser.

Steve said: “I just loved newspapers. I loved the feel of the Daily Mirror in my mum’s flat.

“It came through the letterbox at 7am and I’d jump out of bed and be the first to grab it.

“I trained with some close friends in the 70s and now one’s an associate editor of the Mirror, one’s a news editor at The Sun and one’s got an agency.

“I don’t really mix with musicians. I mix with them because they’re so witty and full of life.”

But the Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) singer actually fell in love with words, stories and music long before that.

Devouring classic literature and listening to his favourite songs proved to be a bit of a lifeline when Steve contracted polio and spent a total of almost four years in hospital between the ages of three and 16.

Steve added: “I was in hospital for a year from January to December in 1966.

“The Beatles’ Revolver and Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde came out that year. It was life changing music to a 15-year-old.

“I’d already got a guitar because I’d heard Bob Dylan when I was 12 and I wanted to sing Blowing in the Wind.

“At the same time I was doing my O-Level studies in the hospital. The school was sending the curriculum to the children’s hospital where I was in Surrey.

“I ended up being ahead of the class because I didn’t have any of the distractions. I was in a hospital bed unable to get up so I did the work and sent it all back and my English master Tony Harding, who still to this day is one of my best friends, sent me extracurricular stuff.

“He sent me poetry by D.H. Lawrence which was not on the syllabus. He sent me Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. He sent me a collection of short stories by Ernest Hemingway.

“I’m 15 and this stuff totally affected me. That’s how it all came about. I had the love of words but the right people encouraged me to read and believe that I could write.”

A couple of years before that even the Rolling Stones paid a visit to Steve during this influential time in his life.

Steve said: “They came down on a goodwill Christmas visit in a really bashed up old blue Bedford van.

“They all climbed out and mingled with us for a while. I was only 12 and I do remember Charlie Watts stood by my bed and talked about what was wrong and how long I was going to be there.

“I’ve told Mick Jagger that and I’ve told Keith Richards and neither of them have a clue what I’m talking about.

“I played for them a few years ago. We opened for them in Warsaw and St Petersburg and I told them both this story and Keith just looked at me like I was speaking in tongues.”

So how did all this translate into a music career defined by 11 albums over almost four decades, including the million selling Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) which is one of the most played records in British broadcasting according to the Performing Rights Society?

By day Steve was chasing newspapers leads but by night he was found ‘floor spotting’ (singing for free as a member of the audience) at London folk clubs where he met the likes of John Martin and Ralph McTell.

The 66-year-old added: “I was brought up in Deptford in south London. We didn’t have folk music there and it wasn’t really my scene but it was a chance to play to people and fine tune the songs a bit.

“I was singing what would become the first Cockney Rebel album.

“So I left the East London Advertiser and Richard Madeley got my job. He still dines out on that story.”

It was just three years after he left journalism that Steve would release Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me).

The hit has been covered more than 100 times in seven languages and has been featured in numerous films including The Full Monty.

Steve said: “It does have a life of its own. I’ve heard Make Me Smile on karaoke on a ferry and my wife and I were in the back of a taxi in Montenegro just last summer and it came on the driver’s radio and he started singing along to it.

“But I’m still thrilled with it. I played it at the end of a 65-minute set at Glastonbury and you get 8,000 people singing back every word.

“I don’t take it for granted. I finish my concerts with it because I don’t think I can follow it and I don’t want to. I want people to go out into the streets thinking: ‘I was part of something’.

“I didn’t have a sense of how big it would be until we were recording it and were about 80 per cent finished at Abbey Road.

“We’d put that guitar solo on but hadn’t yet done the backing vocals and when the managing director from EMI came in and we played it to him.

“I said: ‘What do you think?’ And he said: ‘Number one. It’s fantastic Steve. You won’t be able to stop it’.”

That track is still unstoppable and Steve has never been able to replicate its success but he is still an artist in demand.

By the end of this year Steve will have played more than 50 shows which are booked through his own company called Comeuppance.

Steve, who sang on the Jo Cox charity single, added: “I’ll get calls asking if I can do things like five dates in Holland and Belgium with the band.

“And only half hour an hour ago did I get sent a boarding pass to fly to Sligo in Ireland tomorrow morning to play a couple of songs with the 18-piece house band on The Nathan Carter Show.

“That’s the way life is. It’s a bit silly but it’s good. I really like being busy and I like travelling. It’s a good life.”

Meanwhile, Steve will be visiting the Parr Hall on Saturday, July 22, and promises a set of at least two and quarter hours.

He said: “It’s a lot of singing and I have to look after myself. In every dressing room before every show I still do half an hour of warm ups

“I have a recording of my singing teacher from the 80s playing piano and doing all these scales that I listen to on a MiniDisc player.

“That was from when I was Phantom of the Opera. I went to these singing lessons for three months.

“Your voice is your instrument so you can’t stay up too late, you can’t drink too much alcohol, you don’t want to start talking or shouting in some noisy bar. None of that because you wake up with no voice and I want to be at my best every time I sing.

“You have to be disciplined. You owe it to your audience.”

n Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel perform at Parr Hall on July 22. Visit pyramidparrhall.com or call 442345