Shortly afterwards he joined a territorial battalion of the Welsh Regiment, went to camp in August 1939, and did not return to civil life for over seven years.
[3] After a year as a research student in Cambridge, reading widely and continuing his practice of sampling senior undergraduate courses in other disciplines, he was appointed to the staff of the Geography Department of University College London, where he remained for fifteen years, as Assistant Lecturer (1950–52), Lecturer (1952–64) and Reader (1964–65).
During which time he worked closely with the government advising them on issues of agriculture, tourism, census data and Scottish affairs - introducing a variety of cartography and geographic information systems.
Retirement from the Ogilvie Chair in 1986 was followed immediately by his appointment as Secretary and Treasurer of the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, serving until his death in 2000.
He also became Chairman of the Scottish Field Studies Council and played a major role in raising half a million pounds for a major development at the field centre at Kindrogan House in Perthshire which was appropriately named the Coppock Building in May 1995 when opened by The Princess Royal.