Douglas Hume,
ONC Electrical Engineering, 1965
“I was at Edinburgh Napier’s official launch in 1964 and still remember the excitement
of being at the home of John Napier as one of the first ever cohorts of students.
“I was completing a City & Guilds course and transferred to Napier’s Electrical
Engineering course. I studied at Napier, part-time, for six years and thoroughly enjoyed it! I had hoped to
continue on to the HNC but this was not an option and has been a regret of mine. Despite this, I still feel
that Napier provided me with a huge amount of opportunity.
65
“My favourite memories of Napier include being dared to go up to the attic of Merchiston on the
paternoster lift. I had a few pals that did it! I can’t imagine health and safety legislation allowing
such a thing these days.
“I also met Lord Snowden, husband of the late Princess Margaret, when he visited the campus. I was
carrying out an experiment in a lab during the visit and he came in to have a look around. There were no
such things as calculators in 1964, so we used a slide rule to calculate multiplication and division – which
were of course, based on John Napier’s logarithms!
“My most memorable lecturer was Archie Maclean, who I think was the finest lecturer at that time; he had
an energy and enthusiasm for the subject, which was infectious and encouraged everyone to work.
I met Archie again several years ago – I was called out through work, to Archie’s house, to fix his freezer!”
Kenneth Macfarlane,
Psychology, 1966
“The college, as it was then, had only opened its doors in 1964 and was the buzz of
Edinburgh – the doorway to new opportunities. I was a late starte ȁ