A RECORD-breaking memory man is to visit schools to help students revise for their exams.

Former firefighter David Thomas will be in Bournemouth and Poole as part of a tour made possible by Dorset financial adviser Strategic Solutions.

Mr Thomas recited the mathematical formula Pi to 22,500 places, making him a Guinness World Record breaker. He is also a World Memory Championships medallist and a Sunday Times bestselling author – and has appeared on Oprah.

He said: “Showing them how to pass their exams is a great start as it maximises their opportunities once they leave school. Strategic Solutions staff share my philosophy and have invested their own hard-earned cash to help make this roadshow happen. Hundreds of children will now get access to life-changing information through me that they otherwise would not have.”

In his best-selling autobiography Tell Me Why, Mummy, he told how he was abused by his alcoholic mother and beaten by her husband.

At 16 he committed a string of burglaries and attacked a police officer with an iron bar. “They put me on the floor and kicked me unconscious and I got chucked out of school,” he said.

He joined the fire service but was told he would never pass exams. But when he saw someone on television memorising a pack of playing cards, he borrowed a library book about memory – and went on to enter the World Memory Championships just eight months later.

His speaking tour of the south west begins on September 23 at Newton Abbot College in Devon. Mr Thomas will be at Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester on September 25, Bourne Academy in Bournemouth September 26 and St Edward’s School in Poole on September 27.

Poole-based Strategic Solutions has arranged the tour through its Community Foundation, which is chaired by Jeff Steninger with a committee consisting of Abigail Stidworthy, Michelle Lambell, Russell Tonks, Allan Cruse and Kelly Roberts.

This year, the foundation offered advisers at Strategic Solutions a voluntary scheme to give up part of their gross income to contribute to the fund, with their contributions matched by the company. Recent projects have included supporting the Dorset Deaf Children’s Society, life skills charity Safewise and other financial education projects.