Hitchin Nub News aims to support our community, promoting shops, businesses, charities, clubs and sports groups.

We will be profiling some of these businesses and organisations regularly in a feature called 'Up Close in Hitchin'.

For today's Up Close we meet our town's hard-working town centre manager Tom Hardy.

Tom and his dedicated team work tirelessly in boosting all 629 shops and businesses in our town centre.

Read on to learn more about the work good-natured Tom does for Hitchin, as well as his fascinating backstory which included appearing as an extra in Downton Abbey and Harry Potter, as well spending time in Africa...

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HITCHIN NUB NEWS: Many thanks for your time Tom, we know you're a busy bloke. Let's crack on. Tell us about your background…

TOM HARDY: Thanks, I always try and read Nub News, I really liked your piece on Kier Starmer's recent visit to Hitchin by the way. To answer your question: So, my granddad moved from Ireland to Letchworth for work in the 1930s. He built cranes in the town.

My grandma, who sadly died on Monday, moved from London to the town in 1929. We were very close. She met both of her husbands in Hitchin – out drinking in the Rose and Crown. She used to go dancing at the Hermitage when it was a sprung ballroom.

I grew up in Letchworth but Hitchin has always been the commercial centre of north Herts.

Hitchin market and using all the shops here has always been a massive part of my life. I went to Hillshot, Pixmore, Fearnhill then North Herts College in Hitchin, which of course is now flats.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: What did you study at North Herts College?

TOM HARDY: Acting

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: Did you really? So you could have been the first Tom Hardy…

TOM HARDY: Nearly, nearly! So, I went on to travel around Ghana teaching performing arts. It was just after college. I was 18/19. I was teaching out in the middle of nowhere, living in a mud hut in east Ghana. For three and a half months.

It was an amazing experience. I remember teaching The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and the children had never heard of snow. They were more interested in seeing images of snow, as they'd never seen it before. They couldn't believe it.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: I travelled the world for two and a half years at 29, but to do that at 18 shows great maturity. What prompted that?

TOM HARDY: I just didn't feel that I was ready for university. I just thought I wanted to experience the world a little bit more. I signed up to teach in Ghana. Then I came back and did a lot of film and TV extra work…

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: Such as?!

TOM HARDY: I was a death eater in Harry Potter…

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: Wait, you were in a Harry Potter film?!

TOM HARDY: Yes [laughs] I had a two hour death eater 'induction' on a how wizard holds his wand…I'll never get that time back…so that was interesting. I also did Downton Abbey's Christmas special. I did loads of stuff with Downton Abbey.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: Just out of interest, what was the pinnacle of your Downton Abbey work…?

TOM HARDY: The thing with extras work is that if you see your elbow on TV that's a plus. So, actually, there was one scene where, if you paused it, you could see me pouring a cup of tea…I did loads of adverts including an ad with George Clooney in. Various Asda and Iceland Christmas adverts, the list is endless…

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: I suppose Ricky Gervais' Extras really struck a chord…

TOM HARDY: Absolutely! It is absolutely like that. You are the last in the queue for everything. You are a paid prop. But it is fun. You get a lot of work done while you are out there. You're on set for 14 hours a day with only four hours filming.

I did an advert with my springer spaniel poodle cross. It paid for my kitchen...I still get texts asking me two or three times a week if I'd be interested in being an extra for various things…

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: How did you move from that, to what you're doing now?

TOM HARDY: I found a job working as a PA to the Mayor of Hertford in 2010. That moved from me running events at Hertford Castle, to then moving into town centre events.

While I was doing that I also trained to become a special police constable. It takes an awful long time to train. You're basically doing the same as full time constables but you don't get paid. You get to train with pepper spray and handcuffs. I did that for six months. The training was really interesting because you learn about law without being a lawyer.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: What was the most challenging aspect about that experience?

TOM HARDY: One of the things they stress is that you have to have faith in your own equipment. So they ask you to put pepper spray in your own eye. So you get a cotton bud and you dab it in your eye and it puffs up. That was the worst experience…we got riot training, we got trained in tasers and all sorts of stuff like that. Because we're so close to London there was always that potential call from the Mayor for our services because it was after the London riots…

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: I would love to ask you more about that experience but I'm not sure you'd be allowed to say much more…

TOM HARDY: No. Not really…!

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: We'll leave that there…back to your career…

TOM HARDY: Yes, so I got talking to the person who did the Letchworth town events and it lead from there, dealing with their food and drink festival to start with. The main person left and the directors asked me if I was able to direct their Christmas events. So I managed to get all that done and in January 2016 they offered me the job permanently.

So I did two and a half years there before I got a call from Keith Hoskins [Hitchin's former long-serving town centre manager] to ask if I was interested in coming over to Hitchin. Letchworth was a challenging town but I gained good experience. I feel I did a good job.

My grandma worked in the town centre for the whole of her working life. She made corsets in the Spirella Building and then switched to making parachutes for the war effort during the Second World War. Her sister was one of the first staff members of the Broadway Cinema in 1936 so there's a real family connection with Letchworth so I wanted to do my best.

I started in Hitchin in 2018. He stayed for a year as part of the handover transition. To get your teeth into this job you need a year in the life of a town centre. Keith had 22 years experience. He was the UK's longest-serving town centre manager and I was the youngest at the time.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: What was that first year like?

TOM HARDY: Really full on. There are 629 businesses in our town centre. The town centre covers from the Priory up to the Victoria Pub and from the British Schools Museum to the Highlander Pub. A third of those are offices.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: Did you take anything from your previous CV?

TOM HARDY: The acting experience gives you communication skills. One of my strengths is that I can speak to a very wide range of people. In Hertford I was in regular conversation with Lord Salisbury. I would literally go out and have tea with him. And then go to talk to, say, market traders and stall holders. It's about being to universally communicate with people from all different types of backgrounds.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: There is a special community feel in Hitchin. Do you think that feeds through into businesses in our town?

TOM HARDY: [Emphatically]Massively. And that has skyrocketed over the last seven months. I don't know what it is about Hitchin but people seriously love the town.

You only have to go on certain Facebook pages and see how passionate people are about the town. You realise the only reason people complain is because they care. That really shines through.

That year we had the Christmas tree that was really bad and we had a lot of complaints, I did sit back and think, there would be so many towns where people simply wouldn't care. But in Hitchin they do. They really do.

People feel a sense of ownership about their town. This year we're doing giant baubles. 50 baubles on a tree from different organisations to make them feel connected for example. There is a huge sense of community here.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: Your love of the job clearly shines through. They say if you do a job you love you'll never work a day in your life…

TOM HARDY: Absolutely. It's not a 9-5 job. Especially over the last few months. Essentially the town is open from 6am to late. I could be dealing with anything around those times.

Every day is different. I get contacted with various different issues by a large number of businesses – ranging from questions around business rates to a duckling stuck on a roof.

Having my team with me, that's what helps me do what I do. I've got ten staff, three recycling rangers share mornings. There's a lot of part-time work but it only works because the people doing the job don't do it for the money, they do it because they love what they do. All our rangers are retired, they do it because they love the town.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: Lockdown was a challenging period, what are your recollections of that?

TOM HARDY I furloughed all my staff. I had to. The existence of the company was at stake. We rely on businesses giving us a levy on top of their business rates. And that levy was sat at their doorstep in the middle of April, the height of the pandemic.

I started by sending daily emails to all our businesses, translating information about what was happening. Picking out the relevant information from government updates and making it geographically relevant and specific. I opened myself up for phone calls at any time day or night.

There were businesses that were crying and trying to make sense of what was happening and I talked them through it and reassure them. I then bought a load of hand sanitiser.

It was difficult but with PPE we had to buy it. Because I knew that businesses would be bombarded with offers of overpriced PPE and could be ripped off.

So we sold PPE to them at exactly the same price as we bought it for. They couldn't get it cheaper anywhere else. Saving them money meant a lot of people. We did reopening packs. A bottle of hand sanitiser. Wipes. Information for when they reopened. I don't even know how many hours I was working back then. Even on the rare occasions I would chill out and watch TV, I would get calls from worried Hitchin businesses. I just did what I could.

During the pandemic, being able to help businesses get resolution about certain things was so important – where they get grant funding, putting them in touch with the right person at the council, or the government. Translating information and getting feedback was so important. It's a nice feeling helping people.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: I recall when Keir Starmer visited he seemed interesting in learning what you had done during lockdown…?

TOM HARDYYes. He was a nice guy. It was a very brief conversation with him. I sort of blurted out as much as I possibly could in the short time I was given with him before he was taken away to Waterstones. Our town is always open to all sorts of politicians who can come and chat with us. I think the more people that see the town and recognise what's going on.

We do get a lot of phone calls about our town. Asking if they can film in Hitchin. We had Doctor Foster. We've got Dancing on Ice coming in to take a few shots ahead of their new series in the new year. I don't think they're using the square, I think they'll be using a café. It's a very pretty town.

We always have to weigh up the impact on businesses however. I remember when World's End was filmed in Letchworth. A lot of businesses were impacted and lost a lot of money because of road closures and things like that. So, I'm always mindful that our town isn't harmed in any way.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: Regarding lockdown and the post-lockdown era, how exactly can businesses survive long term in your view?

TOM HARDY: The next 12 months are going to be difficult. Actually a lot of businesses have done really well. Of course there are a lot that have been really struggling. There are some landlords that have helped and stepped in. Some businesses have got grants which have helped, but that only goes so far. I honestly don't know.

We're looking at doing January sales stuff and we've just got to keep plugging away and not use Amazon this Christmas. Because the government have given out billions to help people and we don't want that to end up in Jeff Bezos' back pocket. That would be detrimental to town centres everywhere. If that happens we've got a problem. Communities have to shop locally.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: That would be your message, shop local…

TOM HARDY: Absolutely. What's going to happen if people pour money into Amazon is that we will lose our town centres. It's very much a case of use it or lose it. The town is not just a theme park for people to look at. You have to spend money there to support local businesses, to support our community. To ensure those shops still exist.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: You've said yourself recently that Hitchin is resilient. Yes, there are a few empty shops, but certainly nowhere near other towns up and down the country. What do you think makes it so resilient?

TOM HARDY: I think it's the relationship between customers and businesses. A lot of businesses have such strong support from their customers. Where people come back and use time and time again. When you see on the news that shops need help you do see that people in Hitchin have stepped up to support their town.

I think lockdown helped in a sense. Because butchers and deli's and greengrocers and all those type of stores serving people, helped people during lockdown. And also partly because people didn't want to queue for ages to get into big supermarkets. I also think people have changed their shopping habits. People no longer think so much about going into London to shop as much.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: Hitchin also seems to have become a 'destination' town where people from elsewhere visit, not just people from here, staying here to shop…

TOM HARDY: Yes. We did a lot of work on a tourism strategy prior to lockdown. About how people feel about our town. Putting Hitchin at the centre of a wider experience. You've got all these things nearby such as Hatfield House and Knebworth House as well as things in the town such as Hitchin Lavender and North Herts Museum.

We looked at four different areas. How people discovered Hitchin. The journey into the town. The experience when you're here and return visits.

It's looking at ways to discover our town. Using social media. Signage into the town would be improved. Finger posting. Then the experience when they are here. Could we have guided tours with apps? Bike rental schemes, where we'd have a Hitchin Lavender, town centre, railway station loop.

These were all things that we were working on quite seriously prior to the pandemic. And then packaging them together. Where you'd have a massage say, then lunch somewhere. Things you could buy as a package from a central site. The list is endless.

Unfortunately at the moment, logistically it's just not feasible at the moment. What I would say is come to the information centre and buy a voucher and then you're supporting our town.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: What have been your highlights?

TOM HARDY: Winning a ballot. Every five years BID goes to ballot. All 629 businesses get to vote to see if they want to pay an extra levy or not. If it's under 50 per cent that vote 'no', then we fold. We got 83 per cent in favour.

The Great British High Street was another one. We're still in the top three towns in England. They probably won't be doing it this year for obvious reasons, which is a shame.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: How did the judges view Hitchin after they visited?

TOM HARDY: We put together a video. The video showcased the town. We stopped off at certain key places and we ended up in Market Place and St Mary's Church. They were really impressed by it. We showed them everything. Their 'wow' moment was probably their views from the top of St Mary's. It's an historic minster in a small market town. It's a whacking great big church for the size of our town. It is very impressive. That was the thing that impressed.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: Keith Hoskins was Hitchin's equivalent of Sir Alex Ferguson or Arsene Wenger in terms of spending more than two decades in the role, but what are your plans for the future?

TOM HARDY: I talk to a lot of other towns across the county and country. We talk to each other on a regular basis. You have to. My guiding principles are to try and get through the year. I had so many plans this year. We had 120 events planned and literally not one of them has taken place. That said we did the Eat Alfresco initiative this summer and we've got Christmas Market events lined up.

HITCHIN NUB NEWS: I see from your Twitter feed that you actually chose the Christmas tree…

TOM HARDY: Yes, that was fun. We had to walk for ages through a forest near Berkhamsted. They plant far more than they cut down. The one we chose had been growing for years. We had to check it was the one. It took us a good hour to decide, we had to go through loads of them!

Previous Hitchin Nub News UP CLOSE features:

Sir Kier Starmer

Matt Bean, owner of Cantina Carnitas

Chris Cheah, owner of Chicken George

Fabio Vincenti, owner of Fabio's Gelato

Simmy and Jhai Dhillon, owners of Rice and Spice

Danny Pearson, Beano comic writer

Hitchin Squirrel Rescue

[L]https://hitchin.nub.news/n/feature-hitchin-food-rescue-39seeing-volume-of-food-that-would-otherwise-go-to-waste-makes-it-very-real39[L+] Hitchin Food Rescue

Adam Howard, organiser BackToSchoolival

Hitchin's inspirational Black Lives Matter movement

If you or your business or organisation would like to be featured in a future UP CLOSE please email [email protected] or tweet us @HitchinNubNews