Prevented by ill health from completing his formal education, Hampson worked in a munitions factory in World War I and held a variety of jobs in Nottingham and Derbyshire in subsequent years, such as a waiter, a chef and a billiard-marker, and running a pub with his sister.

[1] In 1925 he was offered employment by a wealthy family in Dorridge, Solihull, as a residential nurse and companion for their son Ronald, who had Down syndrome.

He made a number of literary friends, including Forrest Reid, J. R. Ackerley, William Plomer, John Lehmann, and E. M.

"[3] Although the Woolfs saw Hampson as a good writer, they had been pessimistic about his commercial potential, but Saturday Night at the Greyhound proved a success critically and in terms of sales – quickly selling out its first print run and gaining two reprints in its first six months.

[5] The death of his employer in 1955 saw him leave the house in Dorridge when it was sold, and he died of a heart attack, lonely and virtually homeless, on 26 December.