 His studies were interrupted by war work on ballistics with the Armament Research Department of the Ministry of Supply, eventually taking his BA in 1942 and MA in 1946.Goldie became an assistant lecturer at the University of Nottingham in 1946.In 1948 he was appointed lecturer in Pure Mathematics at what was then King's College, Durham (and has been the University of Newcastle upon Tyne since 1963) where he was promoted to senior lecturer in 1958 and reader in algebra in 1960.