Nigel Marlin Balchin (3 December 1908 – 17 May 1970)[1][2][3] was an English psychologist and author, 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.

For part of this time he was a consultant to JS Rowntree & Sons,[1] where he was involved in the design and marketing of Black Magic chocolates[6][7] and, he claimed, responsible for the success of the company's Aero and Kit Kat brands.

In 1956, he moved abroad to write screenplays in Hollywood, Italy and elsewhere, but was increasingly troubled by alcoholism,[1] and returned permanently to England in 1962.

He wrote about the changes in his home village of Potterne and nearby areas on a revisit for The Sunday Times Magazine's Return Journey series published on 6 August 1964.

[1] Balchin included an unflattering caricature of Darnton as the poet Stephen Ryle in his novel Darkness Falls from the Air (1942).

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.

[20] 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.