He was born in 1902 on East Main St., Darvel. His father, Colin Snr., was a postman, born in Perthshire, whose father had moved to Ayr as a foreman of a chemical works. And Colin Snr. would soon be on the move once more, the family transferring when Jnr. was still a wean to Portobello by Edinburgh. And it was there at junior Musselburgh that his football career at right-half began before, aged twenty-two, being signed by Dundee. And there he stayed for a decade until aged thirty-two he dropped down the divisions to Arbroath.

Meantime, whilst still in Dundee he, registered as a professional footballer, his father no longer a postie but a tram-car conductor (retired) had married Helen Grubb. They were to have four children, two boys and two girls, settling in the seaside town where he had a tobacconists, was on the Gayfield club's management committee for many years and finally ran a grocers/off licence, presumably more or less until his death, aged sixty-eight. It was in 1970 in Dundee Royal Infirmary, he recorded as living still in Arbroath, a publican, with his body cremated again in the city. Helen would pass away still in Arbroath in 1979.