In memoriam

 I'm very sorry to hear that John Burrows has died. A memory man of the ancient times, in that he'd heard of memory techniques and world records back in the days when very few people had, and taken a passionate interest in them, he rediscovered the modern world of memory competitions back in 2008 and was a regular fixture from then on. An integral part of our great British memory crowd, he'll be sadly missed.

And now I'm remembering this conversation on Facebook last year, arising from my appearance on Joe Murray's podcast...

• Niklas Moonsun

Yeeey nice Ben Pridmore!!  I love hearing stories from Memory athletes, especially from the olden times 

Ben Pridmore

Maybe I should do a special podcast just about the world championships in the early days. 2000, 2002, 2003, there are plenty of great stories to tell... 

 

Joe Murray

Hope you enjoy Nicklas 

 

Joe Murray

These stories sound interesting Ben…! 

 

Phil Chambers

Ben Pridmore I can tell stories from 1993 - That's the real early days! Some 'interesting' characters back then.

 

Ben Pridmore

Phil Chambers Now that's ancient history even for an old man like me! I'd certainly tune in to a podcast of reminiscences from back then!

Now I'm looking back at Dominic's scores that year, and they're pretty amazing for a brand new event with no precedent for what people believed was possible - 900 digits in an hour, 1000 binary in 30 minutes, a pack of cards in 120 seconds... must have been even more sensational than later years when people were expecting things like that!

 

John Burrows

well done ben on your podcast interview, really enjoyed it, as for early memory competitions, that would be of great importance considering the interest garnered so far, with many countries now competing, and so they may want to know about its humble beginnings

 

Ben Pridmore

John Burrows I think it's a good idea! I think I should round up some of the old-timers and talk about the olden days of memory - I see it's Tom Groves's birthday today, in fact! Happy birthday, Tom, and how would you fancy reminiscing about the world memory championships of the nineties? 

 

Tom Groves

Ben Pridmore I think it's even less likely that people want to hear what I have to say about memory than they want to hear what you have to say, but sure, I'd be happy to chat about it

 

John Burrows

hi tom i ve never met you but rremember your world record 42.01 seconds deck of cards straight after dominic s 43.59 seconds. awesome back then, sounds good today too.

 

Ben Pridmore

See, this is exactly the kind of thing everybody loves to hear about! 

 

Tom Groves

John Burrows of course the story about that one is that the person doing the timing stopped the watch at exactly 42 seconds but didn't think people would believe that so he added an extra hundredth to make it sound more plausible...

 

Phil Chambers

John Burrows - I'd be up for a collaborative chat with you, Tom and Ben if anyone wants to organise it.

I remember meeting former president of the Magic Circle, Daivd Berglas in 1993 at Simpsons. I think he officially advised the WMC on the rules for Speed Cards to avoid the possibility of cheating through sleight of hand.

I recently did a podcast interview (not specifically about memory, just general ramblings about my life and 23 years in business) Not published yet but it will be on:

https://podbay.fm/.../a-little-bit-of-talent-and-a-lot-of...

 

John Burrows

Phil Chambers happy to be included, thankyou

 

Ben Pridmore

Let's see if we can organise something... 

We never did get together and reminisce. I did compile a slideshow of interesting clippings from the nineties that we could have talked about, but it never got off the ground. We need to get these memories on the record, while we old-timers are still around!