As soon as the Armistice came into operation, on 11 November 1918, Gurney finished work at the munitions factory where he had been employed. During his time there he had made several attempts to go to sea, and friends became worried by what they recognized as increasingly erratic behaviour. A deep restlessness begins increasingly now to show itself, as a brief summary of the outward events of the next three years makes plain.

In January 1919, after spending Christmas in Cornwall, he returns to the Royal College of Music and takes digs in West Kensington. By late February, he is back in Gloucester, at the family home, correcting proofs of War's Embers. Towards the end of April he begins work as an unskilled labourer at Dryhill Farm, Shurdington (near Stroud), although this doesn't last long, because by the middle of May he is back in London, now living at St John's Wood. Then, in September, he takes a post as organist at Christ Church, High Wycombe. This also proves to be short-lived. But during the autumn of 1919, and despite suffering from ‘nerves and an inability to think or write at all clearly’, he makes some attempt to break into London literary circles. He also pays a visit to John Masefield, then living at Boar's Hill, Oxford. Also on Boar's Hill at that time were Robert Bridges and Robert Graves, although there's no evidence that Gurney met either poet.

The following year, drawn back to Dryhill, he tries to set up a cottage at Cold Slad. Not surprisingly that doesn't work out and he returns to to lodgings in London's Earls Court. By April 1921 he is back in Gloucester, from where, in June, he moves to Stokenchurch, near High Wycombe. He now formally leaves the Royal College of Music and yet again returns to Gloucester, where, living at his aunt's house, he once more takes up farm work. At the tail end of the year he accepts a post as pianist in a cinema at Bude, but lasts a mere week.

Early January 1922 finds him living in Waltham Green, London. He then moves to Plumstead, south of the river, and again finds work playing the piano in a cinema. This time he lasts two weeks; after which, it 's back to his aunt's house, and more farm work.