SCHOOL pupils have been given study tips and inspiration from a man who learned to recite Pi to 22,500 places.

David Thomas, who overcame an abusive childhood to become a world-beating memory man, carried out a 10-day tour of schools.

The tour was made possible by Westbourne financial advice firm Strategic Solutions and included visits to LeAf Studio in Bournemouth and St Aldhelm’s Academy in Poole, as well as schools in Devon, Yeovil, Eastleigh and Folkestone.

“What you do over the next few years, even over the next few months, will define you for a long, long time,” he told students at St Aldhelm’s.

“Eighty per cent of people don’t love their job,” he said.

“However much grinding you have to do to pass the exam, trust me, you want to get the good result.”

Mr Thomas, who wrote the best-selling memoir Tell Me Why, Mummy, told how he grew up with a mother addicted to drugs and alcohol, and a stepfather who regularly beat him.

“My life is wall-to-wall amazing. I’ve got a sensational life but back in the day it wasn’t,” he said.

“Some in the room may be suffering worse than me. I’m just saying I get it, I understand, I really do.”

As a teenager involved in crime, Mr Thomas was cornered by police after a burglary. He attacked an officer with an iron bar and was kicked unconscious.  

He was expelled from school but eventually became a part-time firefighter, a job he credits with saving his life.

Later, he saw a man memorising a randomly-ordered pack of cards on TV and borrowed a library book to learn how to perform his own feats of memory.

Eight months later, he entered the World Memory Championships, coming fourth. He went on to memorise the mathematical formula Pi to 22,500 places and to appear on Oprah in 2003.

“By breaking the Guinness record, that was me bringing value to the marketplace,” he told students.

“I was out of the fire service in 18 months and became a full time professional speaker. I earn over £250,000 a year. I wrote a book 15 years ago and got paid £100,000 for 16 days to write the book.”

But he said any amount of money “will mean nothing after three years”.

As well as motivating students, he showed them how “mind mapping” techniques could help with their studies.

“What I want to do is give them a shot in the arm,” he told the Daily Echo.

“I’m asking them to understand something I didn’t get either, but at school you’re really treated pretty equally.

“Once you go to work, there’s no equality. You start the same day as someone  else in the company and they perform worse than you and get promoted for it.”

The tour was driven by Strategic Solutions’ Community Foundation, which offers the business’s financial advisers the chance to give up part of their gross income and have their donations matched by the company.

Other projects have included supporting the Dorset Deaf Children’s Society, Dorset Wildlife Trust and other educational initiatives.

The foundation is chaired by Jeff Steninger with a committee consisting of Abigail Stidworthy, Russell Tonks, Allan Cruse, Rachael Martin, Rob Silk, Dean Robertson, Lindsay Arnold, Kelly Roberts and Emma Turner.