THE hype surrounding the new Alice in Wonderland film has led an Oxford woman to discover she is related to the inspiration for the tale.

As a child, Lisa Liddell, 38, of Patterson Place, Rose Hill, heard her family discuss the possibility there was a distant family link to Alice Liddell, the little girl who inspired Oxford author Lewis Carroll to write the fantasy book in the 1860s.

Miss Liddell all but forgot the supposed ancestral link until publicity surrounding Tim Burton’s new film adaptation prompted a genealogist to research the original Alice’s family tree.

Miss Liddell, received a phone call last week which solved the family mystery.

She was told she is a cousin three times removed of the original Alice, for whom Carroll – whose real name was Charles Dodgson, a don at Christ Church – made up the stories in the 1850s.

When a 10-year-old Alice persuaded Dodgson to write down the tales, she propelled him to lasting fame.

Miss Liddell, who runs The Nursery Store in Abingdon, said: “I knew there was some link on my grandfather’s side of the family, but he died when I was quite young, and my grandmother wasn’t clear what it was.

“It was quite exciting to find out. Because I live in Oxford, I’d always been told about Alice as a child when I was taken round the university colleges.

“I will go and see the new film, but it’s just a story. I’m more interested about reading about the real Alice who was my ancestor."

But Miss Liddell said would reveal her newly-discovered link when one special famous customer of The Nursery Store’s next pops in.

Miss Liddell said Helena Bonham-Carter, who plays the Red Queen in the new film and is the partner of director Tim Burton, is a regular shopper at the Stert Street store.

Mr Burton has a home in Sutton Courtenay and Miss Liddell said she might try to sell Miss Bonham-Carter one of the store’s White Rabbit lamps.

lsloan@oxfordmail.co.uk