#telegraphuk20

In the video, the man himself looks a little bewildered, dismissing the query as ‘random’ before moving on. But underneath, in the YouTube comments – one of the few nooks of the internet where love and goodwill still thrives – a fan repeated it. ‘“How is Louis Tomlinson,”’ they wrote, ‘the only question that matters.’ More than 7,000 people ‘liked’ it.

He pushes his fringe to one side. The Doncaster accent, which softened in his 1D days, is back to pure, unfettered South Yorks. It’s all ‘in t’band’, ‘I didn’t know owt’, and swearing like a navvy. He’s honest, funny, and if his feet were planted any more firmly on the ground he’d be unable to walk.

I never feel super-comfortable on shoots; I’ve got one f—king pose – moody

Ah, yeah I know, they’re considerate, they are. We’ve got a special, interesting bond. They’ve grown up with me – and I’ve been through some personal stuff and they’ve always been there for me.

‘If I’m chasing radio with every song I write, I’m not going to be doing this job for very long. It’s a five-album plan. There’s bits where I’ve been almost selfish, and bits where I’ve been respectful to the fan base and what they love listening to. Then the next will be a step closer to the stuff I want to make. But I’ve got to earn my stripes.

What’s amazing about this job is that regardless of the situation, you get something positive at the end of it. That’s obviously an emotionally heavy song for me, but fans have come up to me in floods of tears and talked about how it’s helped in their own tragedy. It’s incredible. From the dark, you can give hope.

It was mad. They’re manic, young girls… Mum and Mark had a decent income but they couldn’t spread it around [a family of] seven. At times things were really good, you’d get 20 quid in a birthday card, but others were really difficult. I remember the electricity meter – you’d get five quid on the house as an emergency when you couldn’t top it up. Sometimes it’d be a gamble when it’d run out…’

You’re ready to be reckless and stupid, but then I was in the band and couldn’t ever act like that, especially not publicly. There was a good 18 months where I was going out all the time. The press love to write about that as if it’s this chaotic thing, and at times it was, but it’s also an escape. Once you have a couple of drinks down you in a club, you’re just someone in the club, part of everyone else, and not everyone is looking at you.