Cockney Rebel Steve Harley will be taking a walk down memory lane when he returns to south east London to play Greenwich Music Time this summer.

The rock star, 65, was born in Deptford and grew up around Greenwich.

He told us: “I used to toboggan down that hill [at Greenwich Park] when I was a kid in the days when the winter used to turn to snow. We played football in that park. It’s definitely home.

“We’re Millwall people.”

Steve’s dad was even on the books at the old Den – as well as at Brighton and Hove Albion – in the years after the Second World War.

He said: “When we were up on Blackheath and Greenwich Park in the 50s and 60s when I was a little kids all the dads used to put their jackets down for goalposts. My dad was a yard quicker than all of them. It showed.”

The days the Come Up and See Me singer moved from Blackheath 27 years ago and now lives in Suffolk but said visits regularly and would always choose Blackheath if he had to move back to the capital.

He said: “I haven’t played down there since Blackheath Concert Hall about five or ten years ago. I play across the water at the IndigO2 regularly.

“It’s a terrific area, I miss it. We still come back, my wife and I. We have got family in south London and about once a year or so we come and stay the night Saturday and go Sunday morning to Greenwich Market.”

On July 10, Steve plays the Greenwich Music Time series at the Old Royal Naval College on the same bill as 10CC, another act who have been a fixture on the music scene for more than 40 years.

But, as he says it, the reason for carrying-on is simple.

“It’s a really good life, Jim,” he said. “If you’ve got an income, if you’re doing well.

“I’ll never be poor.

“You have got to have an audience for a start. You have got to have a live following, you have got to be good on stage.

“You have got to retain the power to sell tickets, which I still have, thank god. We sold out the Royal Albert Hall last year.

“Two years ago, just as an example, we were in Norway and we were 100 miles north of the Arctic Circle at 11pm and this driver took us into this minibus to be taken to our hotel and he said to us ‘do you want to see the Northern Lights?’

“It was phenomenal, literally phenomenal. You think people pay a lot of money to see that. We got it for free because we were in the city and we had a man who wanted to show us it.

“We go everywhere. As soon as we check in, it’s off to galleries and museums. Every city in the world, we see it. We go on the rivers, we’re tourists. And then we go to soundcheck as late as possible.

He added: “It’s a very good life and we’re all very fortunate.”

Steve Harley and the Cockney Rebel play Greenwich Music Time at the Old Royal Naval College on July 9 as special guests of 10CC. Go to greenwichmusictime.co.uk

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