Pupils and staff of Saltus Grammar School gathered this morning to remember two former students who died in the September 11 terror attack on the World Trade Centre.

Tributes were paid to Boyd Gatton, class of 1980, and Robert Higley II, class of 1989.

A memorial service was held outside the secondary school library, where there is a commemmorative plaque dedicated to the victims.

“Saltus believes that it is vital that a school honours its past, and particularly remembers those who were a part of that past,” said director of advancement Jon Beard.

“Every year since the 9/11 disaster the school has remembered the two alums who perished in that awful terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre Building.”

Principal Claire Charlemagne added that the school wanted to “support and nurture the Saltus family”.

“Remembering Boyd Gatton and Robert Higley II, who died in the 9/11 disaster, is important to all the family,” she said.

“It is important to the family of those who died, it is important to their classmates, and it is important to those who currently are at Saltus, such that they realise how important we are to each other.”

Mr Beard and Mrs Charlemagne attended the service along with deputy head Chris Latimer and other staff, including Steven Masters, who taught Mr Gatton.

Peers of Mr Gatton and Mr Higley II were also present — Jay Correia, Mike Bishop and Mark Orchard — as were head boy Jake Fisher and head girl Nalani Dowling, who laid a wreath at the memorial site.

Ms Dowling was only five at the time of the attack but said she remembered it clearly because her family were living in New Jersey and her father, Bermudian Dr H. Schyler Dowling — a former head boy of Saltus — was on call for the disaster.

The service was presided over by the Reverend Canon Ken Leonczyk Jnr, of St John’s Church in Pembroke, who was a police chaplain in New York on 9/11 and was called to the site at 1pm, working there for three weeks.