Malcolm Hardee sets himself on fire as a teenage DJ

The famed South London comedian Malcolm Hardee made his name in the 1980s, including opening The Tunnel comedy club next to the Greenwich entrance to the Blackwall Tunnel and then Up the Creek in Creek Road, Greenwich. He went on to the run The Wibbley Wobbley floating pub in Greenland Dock, Rotherhithe, near to which he sadly drowned in 2005.

Born in Lewisham Hospital in 1950, Hardee grew up in Grover Court, Loampit Hill SE13. By all accounts he had quite a wild youth of petty crime interspersed with DJing under the name Wolfe Hardee. This story from the Daily Mirror (30 October 1968) feature 19 year old disc jockey Wolfe Hardee of Blessington close, Lewisham, whose party piece was dowsing his clothes in methylated spirt and setting himself on fire.

'The next number from DJ Wolfe is a real sparkler' (Daily Mirror, 30 October 1968)

One of his DJ gigs in this period was at Club Tighten Up above the Ordnance Arms in York Road SE1 (later the Jubilee Tavern), a dance club sponsored by the staff association from the nearby Greater London Council building - as mentioned here.