Life was all about the joke for gentle Golly

David ‘Golly’ Hardy and his wife Sue Hillwood- Harris on their wedding 

day at Wandsworth Register Office, London, in the mid-1980s

By JON ZACKON

Golly Hardy had a brilliant but idiosyncratic sense of humour. He used a gift for mimicry and a bag of other comic tricks to take the mickey. The great humorist Alan Coren was his inspiration, with the notorious Idi Amin “diary” being his all-time model.

 

Oddly, even Golly’s colleagues were sometimes unaware of his talent for mockery. This was because Golly genuinely did not enjoy offending people.    Rather, what he was after, quite simply, was the joke. Nothing else. It’s what he lived for.

 

Golly’s first Fleet Street job was on the Daily Sketch. I was also there and one day Golly complained bitterly to me about an ambitious young Australian sub who stood in on the middle bench. “He dismisses my headlines out of hand,” said Golly, “It’s getting on my nerves. But I know what to do.”

 

A couple of other subs were also tipped off that Golly was up to something and we watched keenly after the unsuspecting Australian handed Golly a two-par filler to sub. This would require a two-line head, apparently ideal for Golly’s purposes.

 

In those pre-computer days we subbed with ballpoints on paper pads made from newsprint. Golly wrote his filler on two pages of newsprint and then used a third sheet for the headline. Strangely, he kept on  and on writing. But why? Eventually he held up the sheet and we could see what he’d done. The silly bugger had written 25 headlines.

 

We all sniggered, of course, but that was only the start. Golly wrote PTO in the bottom corner. turned the sheet over and wrote another 25 or so heads. It had to be a world record.

 

He pinned the heads to the filler and posted it all in the Aussie’s in-tray.

 

For us onlookers it was like watching a horse race or some other event of indeterminate outcome. The tension mounted. After a while the Aussie dipped into is tray and took out the filler. He unpinned the heads from the filler, placed the filler on his blotter and…and…AND dropped Golly’s sheet of 50-odd headlines into his waste basket without giving it a single glance.

 

Golly, who had gone back to his desk, rolled around in mirth. The rest of us fought off a serious desire to laugh out loud. Junior subs were not expected to draw attention to themselves.

 

Then it struck me, Golly had made no attempt to confront his nemesis. It was clear that he didn’t care what the Aussie really thought of him. So why this elaborate charade?

 

It took a long time to dawn on me. What Golly had done was construct a beautiful and memorable joke.

 

That was Golly for you. It was all about the joke. Nothing more, nothing less.

David ‘Golly’ Hardy died aged 83 in June 2024 after a long illness

25 July 2024

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