From Douglas Kell, University of Wales
I was interested to note the throwaway comment in your piece on Black Magic chocolate: “Today [Nigel] Balchin is best remembered as… the man who invented the terms ‘boffin’ and ‘backroom boys'” (1 June, p 50).
Actually I don’t think he is at all well remembered for it, as a request for the etymology of “boffin” which I initiated in these pages just 20 years ago (Letters, 18 March 1982, p 742) failed to elicit any useful information. So can we now be told?
Aberystwyth, Ceredigion
