Passed/Failed: An education in the life of the autistic savant Daniel Tammet

'I didn't have to revise'

Daniel Tammet, 27, has savant syndrome, a rare form of Asperger's. He holds the European record for reciting "pi" - ¼- to 22,514 digits from memory and, for the Five television show Brainman, he learnt Icelandic in a week. He runs a language tuition website (www.optimnem. co.uk) and his autobiography Born on a Blue Day is just out (Hodder & Stoughton, £16.99).

I am an "autistic savant": there are only 50 people in the world with exceptional ability in different areas, in my case numbers. Through "numerical synaesthesia", I see numbers as shapes, colours, textures and motions. Eleven is a smooth number, whereas 37 is a lumpy number, like porridge. Nine is dark blue and one is a very bright white.

I was born in Barking, east London. My first memories of the nursery school are of the sandpit, watching the grains of sand trickling through my fingers. When I was four I had epileptic seizures; it's a common function of those with autism. I took medication to control the seizures but it had side effects and I was very drowsy and slept a lot in class at Dorothy Barley School in Dagenham.

I found the ABC very difficult but found the page numbers in books beautiful: I felt I was wrapped in a numeral comfort-blanket. I began to realise I was able to use my colours and shapes; as numbers got larger, their shapes got more complex. Some of the answers just popped into my head. I found "carry one" etc very difficult. The teacher would ask: "How did you do that?" and I said: "I don't know, I just did it."

Autism is a neurological disorder affecting social interaction, abstract thought and communication skills. Anxiety is a big problem for those in the autistic spectrum. I would count to myself: 2, 4, 6, 8, 16, 32, then into the millions in a few seconds. That calmed me down and it's something I still do today as a coping mechanism. If I saw a shape in the playground - a tree, a stone - it might remind me of a number and I would cube it. Sometimes I would multiply a number by itself, 10 times over.

When I was eight or nine, I did understand for the first time that I was different. I think the teachers did the best they could. I must have been a difficult child. I could understand emotion in theory but not when to have eye contact and when to laugh at a joke. I wanted to be very close to someone - literally, not emotionally - but I didn't realise that people had their own personal space.

I developed a compulsion to write stories with no dialogue but very dense descriptions of "numerical" landscapes; that is, incorporating the various shapes, colours and textures that I saw in numbers. I would write in tiny handwriting and the teachers used to complain. One teacher said she had to change the prescription of her glasses.

At Barking Abbey secondary, I did well academically, top of the class in French and German. "Jardin" was a light, fuzzy yellow with the feel of freshly mown grass; the association helped me to remember the French for "garden".

At GCSEs, I scored A* in history - I loved learning lists of names and dates of monarchs, presidents and prime ministers - and A grades in English language and literature, French and German GCSEs.

I was in the highest set in maths but was given a B in my GCSE because my algebra, which uses letters rather than numbers, was relatively poor. I decided not to continue maths at A-level but chose history, French and German and got B grades.

I was twice Student of the Year. I have an exceptional memory - tested by scientists! I didn't have to revise and would get lazy. However, the exams can be difficult if the questions are not explicit.

Children can be cruel. I love to think that I am not so different from other people, although I don't think that difference is a bad thing and I should celebrate my difference.

jonty@jonathansale.com