Creighton Carvello; Mnemonist who performed remarkable feats of memory on television programmes around the world
Hyfler/Rosner
November 29, 2008
Creighton Carvello: memeory man
Carvello: a mine of sporting facts, he remembered the
goalscorers and referees in every FA Cup Final since 1872
The Memorable Carvello, as he was known to his friends and
admirers, was a legend in the world of memory. The original
"memory man", he was famed for his phenomenal powers of
recall - he could recite thousands of numbers and memorise
hundreds of playing cards and pages of telephone directories
after only a single sighting, and he was a walking
compendium of sporting trivia.
Creighton Carvello was born in Patna, India, in 1944; he was
the middle child of five whose father worked on the
railways. In 1949 the Carvello family returned to England
and settled in Middlesbrough, where Creighton would spend
the remainder of his years. His father first noticed his
extraordinary talent when, aged 7, he started to memorise
information from cigarette cards with pictures of aircraft
and cars.
After leaving school Creighton honed his talent by
memorising more and more information and he soon became a
sensation as he toured clubs and pubs entertaining the
public with his memory. His pièce de résistance was knowing
the telephone number of anyone called Smith who lived in the
Middlesbrough area.
He first got into the record books in his thirties after
reciting Pi to 20,013 decimal places. He travelled the world
appearing on television and baffling audiences with his
elephantine memory. On a live television broadcast in Japan
he was asked to memorise the order of six separate packs of
playing cards which were placed on a rickety card table.
While he was in the memorisation phase, the table collapsed
and the 312 cards were muddled together. As the Japanese
presenter panicked, Carvello asked for the cards to be
presented in a single stack, the order of which he memorised
after a single glance of each card.
Unawares, Carvello had given impetus to the emergence of a
new mental sport as a new generation of memorisers was
inspired to train their own memory to emulate his. In 1991
he was one of seven "mnemonists" to take part in the first
World Memory Championships, held at the Athenaeum club in
London. At the ensuing award ceremony, the winner, Dominic O'Brien,
thanked Carvello and explained that he had been inspired to
take up a career in memory in 1987 by seeing Carvello
memorise a pack of cards on the television programme Record
Breakers, presented by Roy Castle and Norris McWhirter.
In 2003 Carvello set a world record by recalling 3,500 facts
about every FA Cup Final since 1872, including the names of
the referees and goal scorers, the teams, crowd attendances,
scores, venues and more. An avid reader, he once memorised
the exact sequence of 10,000 words from Ernest Hemingway's
The Old Man and the Sea. In 2004 he won a place in the Book
of Alternative Records for memorising 17 random digits
viewed for only two seconds.
Carvello was a man of many talents, including photography,
writing song lyrics, drawing and joke telling. In 2007 his
humour was put to the test. After collapsing from a stroke
at home where he lived alone - he did not marry - he lay
paralysed for four days without food or water before a
friend raised the alarm. Recovering in hospital he joked
with reporters that the four days of total abstinence was
his latest record attempt.
He spent a year in hospital and although his body never
recovered from a succession of illnesses, his mind remained
sharp. After his long stay in hospital Carvello moved to a
care home. Its elderly residents would test his memory with
questions such as naming what day of the week they were born
on. Only days before he died one lady gave her date of
birth, July 29, 1921, and Carvello immediately replied,
"Friday".
Creighton Carvello, memory man and photographer, was born on
November 14, 1944. He died after a long period of ill health
on November 18, 2008, aged 64
MWB
GO PATRIOTS
Mark
Bob Feigel
magnanimously proffered:
>Unforgettable.
I'll remember that.
--
"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Woody Allen
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Wax-up and drop-in of Surfing's Golden Years: <http://www.surfwriter.net>
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R H Draney
>
>From The Times
>November 29, 2008
>
>
>Creighton Carvello: memeory man
>
>Carvello: a mine of sporting facts, he remembered the
>goalscorers and referees in every FA Cup Final since 1872
>
>The Memorable Carvello, as he was known to his friends and
>admirers, was a legend in the world of memory. The original
>"memory man", he was famed for his phenomenal powers of
>recall - he could recite thousands of numbers and memorise
>hundreds of playing cards and pages of telephone directories
>after only a single sighting, and he was a walking
>compendium of sporting trivia.
Anybody know how Harry Lorayne is doing these days?...r
--
"You got Schadenfreude on my Weltanschauung!"
"You got Weltanschauung in my Schadenfreude!"
janey...@ntlworld.com
We had the pleasure of meeting Creighton in 2007 when he did our
wedding photos.
Despite memorising my home and mobile telephone number, he arrived
late to deliver our wedding photos.
I couldnt stop laughing when he rang to say he had forgotten our
address!!
MWB
We had the pleasure of meeting Creighton in 2007 when he did our
wedding photos.
Despite memorising my home and mobile telephone number, he arrived
late to deliver our wedding photos.
I couldnt stop laughing when he rang to say he had forgotten our
address!!
That's COOL.
It's like the Seer, that didn't see the car that runs the stop sign and hits
him.
GO PATRIOTS
Mark