The Small Back Room (novel)

The Small Back Room is a 1943 British thriller novel by Nigel Balchin, a pioneer of the use of computers, who later became Deputy Science Adviser (Army). It makes fun of 'the lesser back-room boy'.

In 1947 it was adapted by the team of Powell and Pressburger as a film of the same title starring David Farrar and Kathleen Byron. Perhaps confusingly, this used the term Boffin to refer to back-room 'boys' rather than to those more like Nigel himself.