I guess MK talks about his first marriage...
that's what I tought too.
Because he was employed in the farm owned by his wife's family if I remember well ?
During his Leeds days, he got married to Kathy White, he was working as a journalist in the Evening Post and, if I remember well, when married, he left the newspaper to study at the Leeds University. I think his wife was a teacher then so they lived with her salary, and in the holydays from University he went to work at the farm of the White Family in Newcastle.
When he got divorced, he left to London and start working at a collegue, work that he left again at the early days of Dire straits to concentrate in the band.
He could be talking about both moments of unemployment, but I guess he talks mainly about the first one.