Fancy a Summer Job as a Harry Styles Tour Guide? Here's What the Tour's Organizers Are Looking For

Remember that 16-year-old kid named Harry Styles from Holmes Chapel, England, who sang Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely?" for a show called The X Factor? Well, that teenager grew up to become one of the top music superstars on the planet. And now there's an opportunity to chaperone all those global "Harries" on a guided tour around his hometown.

With an eye towards safety in the Cheshire village, a cooperative effort between the non-profit Holmes Chapel Partnership and local firm Calvin Marketing is now underway to hire knowledgeable tour guides to help usher non-locals around the area.

"We've always had Harry fans coming," Karoline Peach from Calvin Marketing tells Q over a Zoom call. "Initially he was only really famous in England for the X Factor. But since he's gone solo, it's all blown up globally. We do have a lot of people from around the world now coming to Holmes Chapel."

By train, the Holmes Chapel stop is on the Northern Rail's Crewe to Manchester Line, and for a majority of visitors, this is the preferred mode of transportation.

The site most fans want to see has been the trickiest to access for tourists. The Twemlow Viaduct which is where Styles reportedly had his first kiss is off a "main road with a really narrow pavement that is very dangerous," Peach says. "So, last summer the Partnership came up with an idea to give a map out at the train station. That shows them the other route which walks you through a residential area of the village, and then across a couple of fields which are public right of ways.

And as she emphasizes, "It's safer and there's no traffic."

The idea for a proper tour of Styles sites came from the map, as Peach recalls. "You've got people coming from all over the world who aren't used to English maps and streets. It's far easier to have local help." And with an easy laugh, she adds, "We're quite often guiding people in the right direction anyway!"

The Partnership put out the word through their local newsletter, which in turn was picked up by the U.K. press. "And that's when it exploded," Peach says. Her colleagues stepped up to work with the village pro bono and help with the media exposure that a Harry Styles-styled story would entail. Peach's focal point on this has been: "That as much fun and as exciting as this is, our ultimate aim is to make sure everyone in Homes Chapel is safe when they're walking around the village."

Never miss a story — sign up for the Q newsletter for the latest music news on all your favorite artists, all in one place.

Contrary to popular belief, many of the local businesses welcome fans, many of whom head to W Mandeville, the bakery where Styles worked for a time, or the Fortune City Chinese restaurant, a popular eatery where he purportedly took one-time girlfriend Taylor Swift to in 2012. "We have a lot of independent businesses, particularly in hospitality, still recovering from Covid, and so to have extra visitors coming to Holmes Chapel is great," Peach says, adding: "They love the chance to talk to the fans and share Harry stories if they've got them."

As for what visitors may not expect to see on the tour, Peach stressed that there are privacy concerns as to the location of Styles' former home. "The house is something we've never publicized and it's not on our map. We have to respect the people who live in the house now and the tour that we're doing this summer doesn't include the house."

The big question then is, who will be an ideal tour guide? "We've had interest from people who are retired in our village who are very proud of Homes Chapel, and this is a lovely summer job, mostly outdoors, and a really nice opportunity to meet and greet people," Peach offers. They're looking to have two tour guides per group, one older one to have conversations with the adults, and one to connect with the younger fans. However, Peach relays: "If we do get 16-year-olds, potentially for some of them, this will be their first ever job. We can give them a nice, gentle entry to the working world doing something they enjoy, but also something that brings them a bit of money over the summer months, particularly if you know they're saving up for further education, or wherever they're going onto next."

The deadline for application is April 15, with a half-day assessment at the Holmes Chapel Community Centre on Station Road on April 20, "possibly doing something to camera, just so we can see how they are in talking and projecting their voice," explains Peach about the actual process. After that she states they'll "take a bit of time, how many we want to hire, potentially more than we said, which was 12 and the fact that we've said we're doing every Saturday in June, but from July it may become daily!"