 He became Chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association and Vice-President of the Cambridge Union Society.Cambridge economist Joan Robinson encouraged him to stay for a year after completing his history degree to take an additional degree in economics, which he did and later described as "the hardest work I ever did, much harder than being a PPS".He then trained as a teacher at Moray House College in Edinburgh and taught at Bo'ness Academy for three years and was Director of Studies on the ship school "Dunera" 1961–1962.