COCKNEY Rebel frontman Steve Harley left an estate worth almost £500,000.
The singer had a 50-year career and hit No 1 in 1975 with Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me).
3
3
He left most of his £469,213 estate in trust for wife Dorothy and children Kerr and Greta.
The London-born star, who died in March last year aged 73, also donated £25,000 to The British Polio Fellowship, due to the illness he got in 1953.
He had said: “I was two and I copped a packet in the right leg.
“But that’s all. All I do is limp, it does not affect my life.”
However, he spent much of his youth in and out of hospital and his use of crutches made him the butt of his schoolmates’ jokes.
Harley, real name Stephen Nice and who lived near Clare on the Suffolk-Essex border, also donated £25,000 to the RNLI.
He played guitar since he was ten, soon writing songs and performing at local folk venues.
By 21 he tried his luck in music, surviving on the dole while honing his craft on the London folk circuit and busking. In 1972, he formed Cockney Rebel.
His will, made in 2023, asked for his ashes to be spread by Ron’s Tree in Bethnal Green, said to be East London’s oldest tree.
3
Inside Steve Harley’s love story with air hostess wife Dorothy after admitting to having a ‘real problem’ chatting to girls as a teen
