A RETIRED schoolteacher from Tavistock revealed memories this week of how he taught the world's most wanted man, terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

Brian Fyfield-Shayler taught bin Laden, widely believed to be the mastermind behind this month's terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, when the Arab was a young teenager.

Mr Fyfield-Shayler, 59, taught English to boys at the Al-Thaghr school in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia during the 1960s.

'It was the very latest school in its day, it was going to be the school in which all others in Saudi Arabia were going to be modelled in the future,' said Mr Fyfield-Shayler.

The 'prestigious' school was totally financed by a special department within the government, with students wearing a uniform of white shirts, grey trousers, shoes and socks instead of traditional Arab clothing.

Mr Fyfield-Shayler remembered Osama bin Laden as a 'polite and courteous' pupil, but no more so than any other of the students.

There was nothing 'outstanding' about bin Laden when he knew him as a student, he said.

'He was not the most intelligent in his class, but then of course, it was a very elite school. Although he was in the middle of his own class, that would have put him in the top 50 or 60 of his age group in the country,' he said.

And Mr Fyfield-Shayler said the young bin Laden was 'not particularly' religious either.

'In every class there were always one or two pupils who thought it was their duty to try and convert their teacher — he was not one of those,' he said.

Mr Fyfield-Shayler was 'very shocked' and 'very sad indeed' when he heard of the terrorist attack in America.

He said if Osama bin Laden was involved, he must have changed a great deal from the young student he remembered.

'It was a complete shock — it didn't seem feasible at all,' he said.