Stella Gibbons experience of school, Gibbons found university exhilarating and made numerous friendships, particularly with Ida Graves, an aspiring poet who, although on a different course, attended some of the same lectures. The two shared a love of literature and a taste for subversive humour. Graves lived until 1999, and recalled in an interview late in life that many of the jokes they shared found their way into "Cold Comfort Farm", as did some of their common acquaintances. Soon after Gibbons began the course she contributed a poem, "The Marshes of My Soul", to the December 1921 issue of "University College Magazine".
Stella Gibbons died from heart disease aggravated by heavy drinking. Gibbons was now the family's principal breadwinner; her youngest brother Lewis was still at school, while the elder, Gerald, was intermittently employed as an actor. The three set up home in a cottage on the Vale of Health, a small settlement in the middle of Hampstead Heath, with literary connections to Keats (whom Gibbons revered), Leigh Hunt and D. H. Lawrence. Later that year, as a result of an error involving the calculation and reporting of foreign exchange rates, Gibbons was sacked from the BUP, but quickly found a new position as