Railway worker who helps guide Harry Styles fans around Cheshire village is up for award

A railway worker who has helped guide thousands of Harry Styles fans around his home village has been nominated for an award.

Graham Blake, 62, has welcomed a whopping 5,000 supporters into Holmes Chapel, Cheshire - where the singer grew up - in the last year.

He's even created books where he collects messages from fans - who are known as Harries - and has become penpals with supporters from all around the world.

Graham's now been nominated for a National Rail Award in the outstanding personal contribution category - but he modestly insists he's just doing his job.

He said: "I have people come from all over the world and they turn up to the station with great, big suitcases and I'll always find room for them to store it.

"Then we've made some small little Harrys and will give them to fans if they come on their birthday.

"I've also started up a Facebook page - I try and keep in touch with fans and people from Australia were sending me little presents at Christmas.

"To me, I'm just doing customer service but as Harry says - I'm treating people with kindness.

"I'm a chatterbox so I love to find out where everyone is from because every person has a little box of stories. It's just having a natter and being normal really."

Graham's award comes after tour guides were hired by local group the Holmes Chapel Partnership to show fans around the village, where just 6,700 people live.

Over 150 people from around the world applied for the unique role but only 12 people were chosen to lead the tours after completing an 80-question quiz on the pop star.

The tour starts at the train station - where fans can meet Graham - and then they will be shown Mandeville’s Bakery, where he worked before The X Factor.

Fans will also be able to go to Twemlow Viaduct, where it's believed the singer had his first kiss when he was a youngster, and leave messages for the megastar.

Graham said: "When he was in One Direction, we had a trickle of fans so maybe four or five people a week who would come down.

"It was the last tour when this blew up - we started getting a lot more people coming down so that's when I started making the book.

"We started getting loads when he was touring and it really took off. When it's the school holidays, we will get 25 or 30 fans a day but then some weeks we will only get a couple.

"But on Saturdays, there is always loads. There's 20 people coming down this Saturday for the tour, but not everyone likes to do that, some people like to do their own thing."

NEWSLETTER: Sign up for CheshireLive email direct to your inbox here