 In May 1926 Gibbons 's mother , Maude , died suddenly at the age of 48 . With little reason to remain with her father in the Kentish Town surgery , Gibbons took lodgings in Willow Road , near Hampstead Heath . Five months later , on 15 October , her father 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 secretary to the editor of the London Evening Standard . Within a short time she was promoted , and became a reporter and features writer at the then substantial salary of just under £ 500 a year , although she was not given a by @-@ line until 1928 . 
