 Blythe briefly served during the Second World War and spent the ten years up to 1954 working as a reference librarian in Colchester, where he founded the Colchester Literary Society.Through his work at the library he met Christine Nash, wife of the artist John Nash; she was looking for the score of "Idomeneo".Christine Nash introduced Blythe to her husband, inviting him to their house, Bottengoms Farm near Wormingford on the border of Essex and Suffolk; he visited first in 1947.