15-year-old becomes youngest British person to scoop FIVE Guinness World records
A child genius has become the youngest British person with the most Guinness World Records - after scooping his FIFTH at the age of only 15 years old.
Monty Lord has hit headlines in the past for becoming the youngest fellow of the Royal Society of the arts, a published author and giving a speech at the United Nations.
He can now add another achievement to his remarkable list of accomplishments after claiming three new world records - adding to two more he collected last year.
Monty, who provided Public Health England with groundbreaking research on sleep patterns at the start of the pandemic, has relied on his brilliant memory to achieve each of the records.
He began in 2020 by naming the most consecutive book titles recalled from opening lines before recording the fastest time to identify 10 books by their main character.
Now he has identified the most books by their main character in a minute and identified the most films based on images of its characters in 30 seconds.
Monty, from Preston, Lancs., made it five records in a row this month by identifying the most Star Wars character from a quote within the space of a minute.
According to the history books, he is now the youngest Briton to achieve five records.
Monty said: "I was very surprised to be getting these latest records.
"I can still remember the very first time I received the email from Guinness World Records to say I had achieved a world record.
"Each time an email arrived for these latest world records, the excitement was just the same.
"I actually can't begin to explain the feeling to be told that you're officially the best in the world at something."
Monty's recent success comes as no surprise to those who know him, who watched in amazement as he became a published author at the age of seven.
At the age of 14, he set up a national charity called Young Active Minds to help share some of his memory techniques with schools and community groups across the UK.
At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic Monty provided his own research to Public Health England, then in December he gave a speech to the United Nations.
This year, Monty became the youngest ever fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, etching his name alongside figures including Charles Dickens, Stephen Hawking and David Attenborough.
Monty's long list of accomplishments saw him get an award from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who congratulated him for "all he has done".
His dad Fabian Lord has also paid his own congratulations and spoken of his pride in having such a talented son.
Fabian said: "To meet Monty in the street, you wouldn't notice anything different. He's a relatively quiet, unassuming polite young man, always putting others before himself.
"In fact, in what has become a notoriously British character trait, he's relatively bashful of his various accomplishments."
However, Fabian said his boy is like most other teenagers in many ways, adding: "Try tearing him away from playing with his friends on the Xbox late at night or watching YouTube videos, it's a practical impossibility."
Monty, who's a Sea Cadet and a Royal Marines Cadet, is interested in pursuing a career in the future with the Royal Navy, Foreign Office or in law.
In the short term, he has a TEDx talk lined up, a new book coming out - and three more memory-based records planned for summer.
Monty said: "I don't feel that there's much of a correlation between having a good memory and a high IQ.
"Anyone at all can have a good memory. It's not about being intelligent or a genius.
"It's about having a creative mind that can associate things that you want to remember with random people or objects in your mind."