End of Wonderland after 21 years

By Wena Alun Owen
BBC Wales News website

Alice in Wonderland centre In pictures

Llandudno has long celebrated its connection to the Alice in Wonderland stories.

Written by Lewis Carroll, the stories were inspired by Alice Liddell, whose family had a holiday home in the Conwy seaside town.

These connections are disappearing however.

The Liddell's holiday home is due to be demolished, and the Alice in Wonderland Centre will close next week.

Fittingly to enter Wonderland, you have to go down.... not exactly into a rabbit hole, well not straight away, but down into the cellar of a tall Victorian building in the town centre.

Visitors - supplied with either an audio or text tour in one of nine languages, including Japanese and Russian - enter a full-size rabbit hole(if rabbits were the same size as humans that is).

The brain-child of Muriel Ratcliffe, the attraction opened for the first time in 1987.

It is based firmly "on the books not Disney".

Mrs Radcliffe said she herself, "grew up with the book, and I was in a school production of Alice, probably because I had long fair hair".

When the day comes, and I have to leave, I'm going to be exceedingly sad Muriel Ratcliffe

Not until she moved to Llandudno with her family when she was 17 did she realise the town's connection to the books however.

"I'd been here two days when I found out, and I was thrilled to bits."

Over the years she did "other things", including working in industry, but always wanted to open the centre.

With the support of her late husband Murray, that dream came true in 1987.

Since then "thousands" of people from all over the world have visited.

After 21 years, Mrs Ratcliffe has decided to call it a day, and the place is closing on 14 September.

Canada

Twice as many adults than children have visited the centre apparently, some wanting to reminisce about their own childhood, others wanting to share it with their own children or grandchildren.

Keith Paskin and his wife Sharon Kirkham were visiting from British Columbia, Canada.

"I don't think it's an exclusively child's story because there are lots of little things which are very significant for adults too," he said.

"I particularly like the line about beginning in the beginning and going on until the end, that's so true," he added.

Despite only recently announcing her intention to close the attraction, Mrs Ratcliffe said she has already had several enquiries from people keen to take on the collection.

She wants it to stay together, preferably in Llandudno.

Her personal favourites include the tea party scene in the tour.

Japanese models

The collection is made up of more than the sets on the tour though.

It includes 46 models made by Japanese student Takashi Ohe, as part of his course at Tokyo University of Art and Design.

They came to Llandudno via the British Council in Japan in 1992.

Of the closure itself Mrs Radcliffe said: "I haven't been on holiday for years, but I've enjoyed doing this.

"People have been bringing me cards and flowers in the past week, and I'm really quite touched.

"When the day comes, and I have to leave, I'm going to be exceedingly sad, but I've got a lot of things I have to do."