Upon completing his training as a solicitor, Sargeson left New Zealand in February 1927 and spent two years in the United Kingdom, where he travelled, wrote about his experiences and had his first open homosexual relationship, with an interior decorator who was 14 years older than him. He returned to New Zealand in 1928 and was unable to find work either as a solicitor or as a journalist. He was eventually hired as a clerk by the Public Trust Office in Wellington, where he worked for 15 months. In 1929, as a condition of a two-year suspended sentence he received for a homosexual encounter, he was required to leave Wellington to live with his uncle in Ōkahukura, where he spent 18 months working on the farm and writing. During this time he successfully published an article about his European travels in "The New Zealand Herald" in May 1930 and also completed his first novel, which was rejected by publishers.