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The Brass Butterfly

Commissioned by the leading actor Alastair Sim (1900-1976) 'The Brass Butterfly' was Golding's only original stage play. Starring Sim himself, and also the popular actor George Cole, it opened for a provincial pre-West End run in Oxford in early 1958 and premiered at the Strand Theatre in London in April. In his biography of the writer John Carey describes it as 'a comic scherzo' dealing with the conflict between science and religion, transposed to the Greco-Roman world of antiquity.

The Brass Butterfly

Brass Butterfly door knocker

Alastair Sim and his wife Naomi gave the Goldings this brass butterfly door knocker as a memento of the joint efforts, and for many years it did faithful service on the door of their cottage home in the village of Bowerchalke, near Salisbury in Wiltshire, where the Goldings are buried in the churchyard. The knocker was retired from use when the Goldings moved to Cornwall in 1985.

Bowerchalke, near Salisbury, Wiltshire