Timeline

 

3 Dec 1908	Balchin born in Potterne, Wiltshire
1918	Starts at Dauntsey’s School
1 Nov 1927	Matriculates at Peterhouse, Cambridge
24 June 1930	Graduates with BA (Hons) in Natural Sciences
18 Aug 1930	Begins work for the National Institute of Industrial Psychology
Jan 1933	Launch of Black Magic chocolates, with which Balchin was heavily involved
21 Jan 1933	Balchin marries Elisabeth Evelyn Walshe
1934	Publication of Balchin’s first two books: No Sky (a novel) and How To Run a Bassoon Factory (non-fiction)
16 Sept 1934	Birth of Prudence, Balchin’s first daughter
8 Feb 1935	Leaves NIIP to join Rowntree’s
19 Nov 1937	Birth of Penelope, Balchin’s second daughter
Sept 1939	Joins Manufacturing Confectioners Alliance as Allocations Officer
July 1940	Joins Economics Division of Ministry of Food
2 Aug 1941	Joins the army’s Directorate of Selection of Personnel as a captain
9 Nov 1942	Publication of Darkness Falls from the Air, Balchin’s first genuinely successful novel
31 Dec 1942	Joins the army’s Directorate of Biological Research and is promoted to lieutenant-colonel
6 Dec 1943	Publication of The Small Back Room, Balchin’s most successful novel
9 Dec 1943	Transferred to the department of the Scientific Adviser to the Army Council
26 Dec 1944	Birth of Freja, Balchin’s third daughter
7 May 1945	Appointed Deputy Scientific Adviser to the Army Council with the rank of brigadier
Sept 1945	Publication of Mine Own Executioner, Balchin’s second most successful novel
21 Feb 1949	UK release of the famous Powell and Pressburger film of The Small Back Room
30 Mar 1951	Balchin divorces Elisabeth
June 1951	Publication of A Way Through the Wood, Balchin’s fictional response to the collapse of his marriage
5 Feb 1953	Balchin marries Yovanka Zorana Tomich
5 Sept 1955	Publication of The Fall of the Sparrow, Balchin’s last great novel
27 Dec 1955	Birth of Charles, Balchin’s first son
11 July 1957	Awarded BAFTA for ‘Best British Screenplay’ for his script for The Man Who Never Was
1959	Writes three draft screenplays for the Richard Burton/Liz Taylor version of Cleopatra
24 May 1962	Birth of Cassandra, Balchin’s first daughter with Yovanka
Oct 1967	Publication of Kings of Infinite Space, Balchin’s final novel
17 May 1970	Balchin dies after a heart attack at the Greenaway Nursing Home in Hampstead
Apr 1974	Clive James writes long critical appraisal of Balchin in The New Review
Oct 2005	UK release of Separate Lies, Julian Fellowes’ film adaptation of A Way Through the Wood
Apr 2008	BBC Radio 4 broadcast ‘The Small Back Room Boy’, a documentary about Balchin
1 Sept 2015	Publication of His Own Executioner: The Life of Nigel Balchin by Derek Collett, the first biography of Balchin. This is followed by a revised edition in 2021 and, between 2021 and 2023, five reissued novels (Seen Dimly Before Dawn, Simple Life, In the Absence of Mrs Petersen, Sundry Creditors and Mine Own Executioner) that together constitute The Nigel Balchin Collection.