Nigel Marlin Balchin was an English novelist and screenwriter particularly known for his novels written during and immediately after World War II: Darkness Falls from the Air, The Small Back Room and Mine Own Executioner.
Life
Balchin was born in Potterne, Wiltshire, the third and last child of William Edwin Balchin, a baker and teashop proprietor, later grocer, and Ada, the daughter of a railway guard. His paternal grandfather, George Martin Balchin, of a line of wealthy Surrey farmers, was a farmer of 800 acres; his sudden decision in 1887 to cease work on his farm had a negative impact on the Balchin family's finances. At the age of eighteen months, Nigel knocked over a kettle of scalding water, and was so badly burned that he was not expected to survive. 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 between 1930 and 1935. For part of this time he was a consultant to JS Rowntree & Sons, where he was involved in the design and marketing of Black Magic chocolates and, he claimed, responsible for the success of the company's Aero and Kit Kat brands. He wrote for Punch magazine, published three non-fiction books as Mark Spade, and also wrote novels under his own name. During World War II he was a civil servant at the Ministry of Food, and then, on the basis of his pioneering work on personnel selection and scientific research, appointed Deputy Scientific Adviser to the Army Council, being promoted to the rank of brigadier at the early age of thirty-six. In 1956, he moved abroad to write screenplays in Hollywood and elsewhere, but was increasingly troubled by alcoholism, and returned permanently to England in 1962. He died in 1970 at a nursing home in Hampstead, London, and is buried on the edge of the north path in Hampstead Cemetery in north London. His gravestone is small, but distinctive, having the form of an open book.
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 Pressburgerfilm of the same title. A Way Through the Wood was adapted as a stage play, Waiting for Gillian, and as the 2005 film Separate Lies, which marked the directorial debut of Oscar-winning screenwriter Julian Fellowes. Other critically acclaimed Balchin novels include A Sort of Traitors, Sundry Creditors, The Fall of the Sparrow and Seen Dimly before Dawn. 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 1957 BAFTA Award for Best British Screenplay, and Mandy, the story of a deaf child. He also wrote the screenplay for The Singer Not the Song and adapted two of his own novels for the screen.
Family
Balchin was married twice, firstly in 1933 to Elisabeth Evelyn Walshe, daughter of the novelist Douglas Walshe, whom he had met at Cambridge where she was reading English, archaeology and anthropology at Newnham. Their children were:
Prudence Ann Balchin, who married Z-Cars scriptwriter John Hopkins and ran a zoo for many years.
Penelope Jane Balchin, better known as childcare expert Dr Penelope Leach, who married the science journalist Gerald Leach.
His first marriage broke up following a partner-swapping arrangement between the Balchins, the artistMichael Ayrton and the latter's partner Joan. Elisabeth also had an affair with the composer Christian Darnton. Balchin divorced Elisabeth in 1951 and she married Ayrton a year later.. Balchin included an unflattering caricature of Darnton as the poet Stephen Ryle in his novel Darkness Falls from the Air. In 1953 he married Yovanka Zorana Tomich. They had two children:
Charles Zoran Marlin Balchin, who held senior roles at the BBC, Sky Sports and various overseas broadcasters.
Cassandra Marlin Balchin, an authority on women's rights under Islamic law.
Books by Mark Spade
How to Run a Bassoon Factory; or Business Explained
