Brian Patterson, a former school pal of Twin Towers victim Boyd Gatton, can still see in his mind’s eye the smiling face of his late classmate.

They were both pupils at Saltus Grammar School and regularly found themselves chastised by the teachers for speaking out of turn.

Mr Patterson, 64, speaks with fondness of his school friend and recalls the fun-loving and smart boy whose grinning face was framed by big glasses.

He said: “Boyd was very inquisitive, smart and quick-witted and he was always wanting to know stuff, asking questions.

“He had big glasses, not necessarily with thick glass but they were large, square glasses and I remember him in those. But he was a happy fellow and one of the guys.

“I played rugby and I think Boyd played cricket.

“Remember, Saltus back then was all boys and he was quick to joke and laugh. He was a good character and had lots of friends. But, like a lot of us back then, who were more capable and made remarks, you basically got in trouble with the teachers.

“English teachers back then were strict and so even the slightest comment was seen as a little bit disrespectful.”

Mr Patterson, like so many people, has a distinct memory of where he was and what he was doing on the day of the Twin Towers tragedy.

He recalled: “I can remember I was working in Bermuda for a law firm and we were up in the boardroom doing something and we got a call and a message to turn on the television set that was in the boardroom.

“We did that and saw the first tower going, collapsing.

“We all went downstairs and then saw the second tower was collapsing.

“The strange thing that sticks in my mind was for the next week or two we had no work. We were a Bermuda offshore law firm and nothing came in for about two weeks.

“I don’t really remember how I found out that Boyd had been killed. I don’t think it was right away.

“It might have been a week or two after [the attacks] and then it was likely when I had seen events and newspaper articles.

“Boyd went to school with us for quite a few years and was a regular part of the class, so it was quite something to find out that someone we knew so well had died.

“On each anniversary a group of us would do the ceremony at the school and that palm tree, well, that has grown quite a bit.

“We don't go as much since, but since I moved away to the Cayman Islands to work I have not been as much.

“I have read about the ceremony in the newspapers every now and then but now it is the younger students who have taken over the memorial and a kind of unknown alumni.”

Mr Patterson told of a poignant moment when he visited the memorial site of the former twin towers and found Mr Gatton’s name in the list of those who died.

He said: “Wow, it gives me goosebumps now thinking of it.

“There are all those names on the marble memorial of all those who perished and I found Boyd’s.

“There were a few of us and I put a piece of paper over it and scribbled the way you do with a pencil to get a mirror image of it. It came up and I was able to bring it back.

“Any time you hear about anything to do with the World Trade Centre then Boyd comes to mind as someone who was in there.

“It makes it personal, because when you look at any disaster such as Nepal and the terrible floods then I don't know anybody who is there.”

He added: “It brings it home much more strongly when you know a person involved.

“I always think as well of others who didn’t go into work that day, or were supposed to go and were held up in a traffic jam on the bridge or whatever and escaped.

“Boyd was working with an insurance firm and was doing well.”

Mr Gatton was 38 when he died.

“[He] would have lots more to do in life, he was only really half way through his life,” Mr Patterson said.

Dexter Smith, another former pupil of Saltus Grammar, spoke movingly of his friend from school.

He said: “One of the first things I did upon returning to Bermuda in late 2013 was to take part in a memorial tree planting that honoured Boyd Gatton.

“Boyd was much loved in our Saltus community. He may have been small in stature but the proud St Georgian was huge in spirit and intellect. When Boyd was in the room, you knew.

“I made a point of searching out his and the other names of Bermudians who perished on that terrible day when I visited ground zero a few years ago.

“It is a day that will live with me for ever.

“Working at The Times in London, I was excited about starting my first ‘lunchtime’ shift for the big Saturday edition and there was a big centrally located television just above my workstation.

“Suddenly, a crowd of people assembled behind me because there was news of an aviation accident in New York.

“The volume was turned up as we looked aghast and then minutes later a small helicopter-looking object flew into the second tower in front of our eyes. The day changed inevitably from that point.

“It was several days later that I learnt Bermudians were in the towers, striking even closer to home when hearing of Boyd.

“It is so important to remember them all on this 25th anniversary.”

Another former classmate of Mr Gatton, Mark Orchard, said: “Boyd was impish. He was also a very good classmate, a lot of fun, friendly and very warm. He had a big personality, was warm and charming.

“He was a bit cheeky and mischievous with the usual boys' stuff.”

He added: “Boyd and I were not particularly good sportsmen.

“We all played cricket but he was never in a first XI or XV for anything that I recall. He might have been on a school team. But he was academic.”

Mr Orchard said that at 16, most pupils completed fifth form and “went off”.

“To be honest, I think that may have been the last time I actually saw Boyd,” he added.

Mr Orchard said: “Boyd was a motivated, driven, young man and that’s why he ended up in Wall Street and the Trade Centre in New York.”

He also recalled a couple of incidents from school that stood out.

He said: “I remember Jesse Jackson came to Bermuda in the mid-1970s and a bunch of Black Bermudian kids all went to see him speak and it resonated with a lot of people.

“Boyd came back wearing a button [badge] and he wore that button for quite a while after. It resonated with Boyd and with me with integration happening.

“I also remember we had a master who was a maths teacher and he was quite unpleasant and gave a lot of the boys detention and such. He used to also throw the eraser [wooden backed duster] at the boys in class for talking and one day he threw it at Boyd, who caught it and threw it back.

“I never actually saw the incident but all the boys were talking about it.

“Boyd had been talking and the master threw that eraser at him but he caught it with one hand and chucked it back.

“He got detention for that back then but he could have been expelled.”