Scotland On Sunday

The architectural critic Neil Cameron wryly noted that when he ran the name "Doolan" through his computer's spell-checker, his software amusingly suggested the alternative choice of "dollar". Certainly, the allusion to affluence is an apt coincidence guaranteed to raise a smile with anyone who knew the Edinburgh-based architect Andrew Doolan, who died unexpectedly, aged 52, last week. A miner's son, Doolan had discovered a head for business as a schoolboy. Legend has it that at 13 he earned his first £1,000 selling ballpoint pens on an excursion to Russia. Despite leaving St Ninian's High in Kirkintilloch with a solitary Higher in engineering drawing, he graduated from Leeds School of Architecture having completed his Highers at night school while working as an apprentice architect in Glasgow. Soon after, he made his first million pounds when he purchased, renovated and resold 12 shops and 80 flats on Edinburgh's Southside that he had bought for a mere £77,000.