Sayers After Oxford

 On gaining her degree, Sayers took up a teaching post in Hull, and stayed for over a year. However, her experience of teaching was not that happy.  She was enthusiastic, but realised that most of the pupils had not learned very much and that it was difficult for someone like her, who had always loved studying and been well taught, to get down to their level.   She also knew that in her heart of hearts, she wanted to be a writer or dramatist, rather than teach even though at the time probably most women graduates ended up as teachers.  The War was still going on.  After a year, she returned to Oxford, where she had been so happy.  Her father had been helping her with a small allowance, until she was able to be self supporting and now he paid out a sum of money for her to become an apprentice learner in a publishing house.  She took up work at Blackwells, which was then a small but thriving business, and Basil Blackwell, the owner, who became a good friend, engaged to teach her all about the publishing process.  She was on a very small salary, but was so happy to be back in Oxford.  She felt she was much better suited to mixing with writers and artists, than with schoolchildren. She continued to write poetry, often on religious themes and had some work published.  

She enjoyed the social life in Oxford, seeing old friends - many of whom were also starting on a writing career and she met the famous Sitwell brothers who were poets.  Through one of her women friends, Doreen Wallace, she met a man called Eric Whelpton.  Like her he dabbled in writing, and was a Francophile who had spent some of his early life in France.  He had several health issues, due to his war service and Dorothy began to grow fond of him.  She moved into  a new boarding house where he was staying and their friendship developed.    He was more sophisticated, especially in sexual matters than the inexperienced Dorothy, and while he liked her very much, he did not seem to reciprocate her feelings... 

After 2 years in Blackwells, Dorothy left the job, because Basil Blackwell had moved on towards publishing school text books, and that left little outlet for her creativity. She continued to do some work for him, reading manuscripts and she made a little money tutoring but she seemed to be a standstill, career wise.  She didn't like teaching, and publishing had not worked out.  Her friendship with Whelpton was going nowhere.  Then he got a job in France teaching, and decided to set up a sideline business, arranging for English schoolchildren to go to France to learn, and vice versa.  He suggested that Dorothy might like to become his secretary and help him run the business, which would mean being based in the school in France, for a time.   Pleased at the idea of working with him, and having no real job prospects in Oxford, she decided to take up the offer....