Michael Balls and Donald Straughan

2025 | 224pp colour hardback | ISBN: 978-1-914002-63-2

Born in Norwich, Michael Balls had an academic career in biomedical research at Oxford, Geneva (Switzerland), Berkeley (California), Portland (Oregon), Norwich and Nottingham, before becoming a scientific civil servant in the European Commission at Ispra in Italy. He was Chairman of the Trustees of the Fund for the Replacement of Animal Experiments (FRAME), and Editor of its scientific journal, ATLA, for more than 30 years. On retirement, he returned to Norfolk, to live near the North Norfolk coast at Aylmerton, before achieving his one unfulfilled ambition, to live close to Norwich Cathedral, one of the loves of his life for 80 years.

The first part of Donald Straughan’s professional life was as a pharmacologist in academia and in the pharmaceutical industry. He then spent ten years as a civil servant on the governance of animal experiments. Having shared interests with Michael on the ethics of animal experimentation, their best conduct and their efficient regulation, on retirement from the Home Office Donald joined him as a FRAME Trustee. Along the way, he became interested in local history and investigated various questions related to Bath, Shrewsbury and Petworth (West Sussex).

They began to work together again, when Donald offered to assist Michael in his investigation of the complicated historical background to life in Norwich Cathedral Close. This has involved looking into interactions between the British and the Romans, the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes, the coming of Christianity, the Norman Conquest and the Reformation, and the influence of kings and queens, and international, national and local politicians on the development of the city of Norwich, the Church of England, Norwich Cathedral and life in the unique 44 acres surrounding it, The Close.