Hamish went to King's as a choral scholar to study music and work terrifically hard in the choir both during termtime and during the holidays. This would have included the annual Festival of 9 Lessons and Carols broadcast on the BBC every Christmas Eve.

The choir did some excellent recordings and Hamish was directed by Boris Ord for whom he had enormous respect (this was not true for all Hamish's experiences of being directed and he was pretty open with his critique to friends). Hamish left University with an openly acknowledged double third, although in later life friends would always wonder how, given his obvious intelligence and brilliant memory