AS the Libyan government teeters on the brink a retired lecturer recalled how a young Colonel Gaddafi spent several months studying in Beaconsfield in 1966.

Roy Hurst, 72, was a Russian language tutor at the Royal Army Education Corps Centre at Wilton Park when Gaddafi, then a 24-year-old lieutenant, took a short English course.

Mr Hurst said: “The amazing thing to me was that it wasn't even as though he was a major or a colonel, he was simply a junior lieutenant.

“Then three years later he was in charge of the country. In the blink of an eye, he had risen from obscurity to a position of enormous power."

The school is now known as the Defence School of Languages and is still based at Wilton Park. Mr Hurst retired in 2002, having been awarded an OBE in 2000 for his services to the school.

The Langley resident, who spent much of his working life living in Gerrards Cross, added: “Obviously, the staff used to discuss the students and I remember talking to one of my colleagues who taught him.

“There was apparently nothing that set him apart from the other students. He was a young guy who didn't stand out from the crowd.

“Years later, in an interview to a British newspaper, he spoke of his affection for the UK and for towns like High Wycombe.”

After leaving Wilton Park, Muammar Al-Gaddafi was assigned to the Libyan army's signal corps, based on the outskirts of Bengasi, where he broadened the base of a revolutionary movement.

In 1969, King Idris was overthrown and Gaddafi proclaimed the Libyan Arab Republic.

Mr Hurst said: “I've been amazed this past week, seeing the domino effect of regimes falling in Tunisia, Egypt and now possibly Libya.

“Gaddafi is the longest-serving dictator of them all, so perhaps his time has come.”