More about Alice

'The time has come,' the Walrus said,

To talk of many things:

Of shoes- and ships- and sealing wax-

Of cabbages-and kings-

And why the sea is boiling hot-

And whether pigs have wings!'

This delightful verse is typical of the wonderful story of Alice in Wonderland. While reading her story we enter a country where nothing is as it should be, and where all sorts of unexpected and improbable things happen. Lewis Carroll's real name was Charles Luteidge Dodgson and he was a university professor of mathematics and logic at Christchurch, Oxford. When he was about thirty- three he took his friend Dean Liddell's children,Alice Liddell and her two sisters for a river trip near Oxford . They stopped for a picnic in the meadows and they asked him to tell them a story. So that is how Alice began her immortal adventures by going down a rabbit hole. It was an immediate success and is still enchanting young children.

John Masefield tells us inhis Everlasting Mercy that

He who gives a child a treat

Puts golden stones in heaven's street,

And he who gives a child a home,

Builds palaces in Kingdom Come.

So if you haven't already read Alice in Wonderland you have a treat in store  - playing croquet with live flamingoes and hedgehogs,sitting in a train with a dressed-up goat,the Mad Hatters tea party just to mention a few.