Harry Styles paused his Manchester concert to locate his primary school teacher in the crowd on Wednesday night (15.06.22).
The 'Music for a Sushi Restaurant' singer wanted to pay a special thanks to Mrs. Vernon of Hermitage Primary School in Holmes Chapel, Crewe, which is just an hour outside of Manchester, and the pop star dedicated his performance of 'Canyon Moon' at Emirates Old Trafford Stadium to her.
Harry then had her beamed onto a giant screen behind him and asked her: "How are you? I heard you're retiring."
He went on: "I just want to thank you for everything in those formative years. Thank you so much. "It means a lot to me that you're here tonight, you were truly a wonderful teacher. Thank you from the bottom of my heart it means a lot that you're here and I'm dedicating this next song to you." He then joked: "Can you imagine dealing with me when I was four?" Harry, 28, added: "I was very fun."
Turns out the teacher who he saw at the concert was not 'Mrs. Vernon' - his first teacher. However, Mrs. Bailey, the teacher Harry saw was still one of the teachers who taught him.
The night after the gig, the real Mrs. Vernon appeared on BBC Radio 2's 'The Zoe Ball Breakfast Show', where she revealed the former One Direction star was a "cheeky monkey" when he was little and showed all the signs of wanting to be a performer early on. She said: "I taught him when he was four and five and he was adorable. He was a little bit of a monkey, cheeky, and he had lots of friends so a lot of his personality that you see now was quite evident from an early age. "Later on in the Key Stage 2 he was in lots of performances, so it's really in those years we saw how talented he was with his music. The best performance that I remember was when he was Elvis in the performance of 'Joseph' that he did. But yeah, in everything he was amazing, all the teachers here are just so proud of him and so excited about this and everything that he's achieved." She added of the sweet gesture at the show: "Thank you Harry for that lovely message, I was very touched by it."
Mrs. Vernon confirmed that the lady who waved, Mrs. Bailey is one of her colleagues at the school.
Bang Showbiz