Starts at Heath Mount preparatory school. 1917 Starts at Lancing College in Sussex. 1922 Starts in January at Hertford College, Oxford, reading History. Achieves a third-class degree but leaves Oxford without taking it. 1925 Teaches at Arnold House School in Wales.
Attempts suicide by swimming out to sea but turns back after being stung by a shoal of jellyfish.
After leaving Wales, takes up another schoolmaster's job at Aston Clinton in Berkshire. Sacked from Aston Clinton. Meets Evelyn Gardner. 1928 Marries Evelyn Gardner. Decline and Fall published.