Nigel Balchin

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Nigel Balchin

Born December 3, 1908(1908-12-03)
West Lavington, Wiltshire, England
Died May 17, 1970 (aged 61)
Regent's Park, London, England
Pen name Mark Spade (occasional alongside own name)
Occupation Psychologist, Author
Spouse(s) 1) Elizabeth Evelyn Walshe m. 1933 div 1950

2) Yovanka Tomich m. 1953
Children 1) By Elizabeth Walshe:

Prudence A. (b. 1934)
Penelope J. (b. 1937)
Freja M. (b. 1944)
2) By Yovanka Tomich:
Charles Z. M. (b. 1955)
Cassandra (b. 19??)

Nigel Balchin (3 December 1908 – 17 May 1970) was an English novelist and scriptwriter.

He was born Nigel Marlin Balchin[1] in Potterne or West Lavington, Wiltshire[2] to William and Ada Balchin, the local baker. He was educated at Dauntsey's School and Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he took a scholarship and became a Prizeman in Natural Sciences. He then worked for the National Institute of Industrial Psychology. In 1933,[3] he married Elizabeth Evelyn Walshe (1910–1991), whom he had met at Cambridge where she was reading Archaeology at Newnham. She was the daughter of the novelist Douglas Walshe, and they had three daughters,[4][5][6] including childcare expert Dr Penelope Leach. He later worked for Rowntree's, and is credited with naming Kit Kat chocolate bars and for introducing the concept of Aero bubbles.

He wrote for Punch magazine, published as Mark Spade, and then turned to writing novels under his own name. During World War II he was a civil servant, then a successful scientific adviser, rising to the rank of Brigadier.

After the war, his marriage broke up, ending in divorce (1950), and his former wife then married the artist Michael Ayrton.[7] In 1953,[8] Balchin married Yovanka Tomich and had a further son[9] and daughter by her. In 1955, he moved to Hollywood to write screenplays, returning to England in the early 1960s. He died in 1970 at his home in Regent's Park, London,[10] and is buried in Hampstead Cemetery.

Contents

[edit] Writing

His novels enjoyed great popular success for a time. Darkness Falls From the Air is set during the London Blitz and was written while the bombing was still in progress. The Small Back Room became a Powell and Pressburger film and popularised the terms boffin and backroom boy, which Balchin is popularly credited as having coined,[11][12] though the definite origin is unknown. A Way Through the Wood was adapted as a stage play Waiting for Gillian, and as the 2005 film Separate Lies.

As a screenwriter he worked on an early draft of Cleopatra but is principally remembered for The Man Who Never Was, for which he won the 1956 BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay, and Mandy the story of a deaf child.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Books by Mark Spade

  • How to Run a Bassoon Factory (1934)
  • Business for Pleasure (1935)
  • Fun & Games - How to win at everything (1936)

[edit] Novels by Nigel Balchin

  • No Sky (1934)
  • Simple Life (1935)
  • Income & Outcome (1936)
  • Lightbody on Liberty (1936)
  • Darkness Falls from the Air (1942)
  • The Small Back Room (1943), made into a film in 1949
  • Mine Own Executioner (1945), made into a film in 1947
  • Lord, I Was Afraid (1947)
  • The Borgia Testament (1948)
  • A Sort of Traitors (1949), made into a film in 1960
  • A Way Through the Wood (1951), made into a stage play Waiting for Gillian, and the 2005 film Separate Lies.
  • Sundry Creditors (1953)
  • Last Recollections of My Uncle Charles (1954) stories
  • The Fall of the Sparrow (1955)
  • Seen Dimly Before Dawn (1962)
  • In the Absence of Mrs. Petersen (1966)
  • Kings of Infinite Space (1967)

[edit] Screenplays by Nigel Balchin

[edit] Miscellaneous

  • The Aircraft Builders (HMSO 1947)
  • The Anatomy of Villainy (Collins 1950)
  • Writing in Pictures, in Diversion (Max Parrish - London ed. John Sutro 1950)
  • The Worker in Modern Industry (Institute Of Personnel Management 1954)
  • US Now We Are Broke, My Dear (Saturday Evening Post Stories Random House - New York 1950)
  • Private Interests (aka Sundry Creditors) (Houghton Mifflin Boston 1953)
  • Who is my Neighbor? (aka A Sort of Traitors)
  • God and the machine (in Fantasia Mathematica from Last Recollections of my Uncle Charles, Simon & Schuster ed. Clifton Fadiman 1958)
  • Cabinet Decision (from Who is my Neighbour)
  • The Armchair Science Reader (Simon & Schuster ed. Isabel S Gordon and Sophie Sorkin 1958)
  • The Master, in In The Dead Of Night (from Last Recollections of my Uncle Charles, Anthony Gibbs & Phillips 1961)
  • Fatal Fascination (Little, Brown & Co Boston 1964)

[edit] References

  1. ^ The middle name "Marlin" was inherited from his grandfather, George Marlin Balchin (1830–1898), where it was probably a corruption of Martin. Several members of his Balchin branch have this middle name.
  2. ^ GRO Register of Births: MAR 1909 5a 101 DEVIZES
  3. ^ GRO Register of Marriages: MAR 1933 1a 581 CHELSEA - Balchin = Walshe
  4. ^ GRO Register of Births: DEC 1934 1a 16 PADDINGTON - Prudence A. Balchin, mmn = Walshe
  5. ^ GRO Register of Births: MAR 1938 1a 808 HAMPSTEAD - Penelope J. Balchin, mmn = Walshe
  6. ^ GRO Register of Births: MAR 1945 1a 551 MARYLEBONE - Freja M. Balchin, mmn = Walshe
  7. ^ GRO Register of Marriages: DEC 1952 5d 585 MARYLEBONE - Ayrton = Balchin or Walshe
  8. ^ GRO Register of Marriages: MAR 1953 5d 712 MARYLEBONE - Balchin = Tomich or Tomic
  9. ^ GRO Register of Births: DEC 1955 5d 189 PADDINGTON - Charles Z. M. Balchin, mmn = Tomich
  10. ^ GRO Register of Deaths: JUN 1970 5b 1779 HAMPSTEAD, DoB = 3 Dec 1907 (1908?) Nigel Martin (Marlin?) Balchin
  11. ^ Rowland, Peter (2004). Balchin, Nigel Marlin (1908–1970). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved on 2007-09-17.
  12. ^ That old black magic, Geoff Bunn, New Scientist #2345, June 1, 2002

[edit] External links

Persondata
NAME Balchin, Nigel Marlin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Balchin, Nigel
SHORT DESCRIPTION Psychologist, author
DATE OF BIRTH 1908-12-03
PLACE OF BIRTH West Lavington, Wiltshire
DATE OF DEATH 1970-05-17
PLACE OF DEATH Regent's Park, London
Languages