David Thomas, known as the Memory Man for his astonishing feats of memory – which include reciting the value of Pi to 22,500 digits – shared with delegates some of the secrets of his success.

“There’s no such thing as a bad memory,” he said. “You all have either a trained memory – or not.”

Training one’s memory is about organizing what you need to remember using imagery and imagination to aid recall, he said.

He urged delegates to aim to be different – “not just a little bit…it’s got to be a lot.”