He began training in Saint Mary's College, Blairs, Aberdeen, where philosophy students of St Peter's were temporarily being housed and taught and then moved to St Peter's, Bearsden. When a fire in Bearsden destroyed the seminary during renovation works the entire college community was moved from there to St Joseph's College, Mill Hill, London. After the war ended, he was part of the first group of students to be sent to re-populate the Scots College in Rome. The College had been empty of students since 1939. He was ordained in the Church of St John Lateran, in Rome, on 18 December 1948. His father sold the sweet making machinery as a way to pay the fare for the family to go to Rome for the ceremony.