To the people of Shropshire

First of all, thank you kindly for taking the time to read. Alice's story is of course incredibly important to highlight, but to do so without local involvement would be wrong. With that said, I have personally taken a huge interest in the folks who do know her story online.

I am deeply touched by those wishing us well in everything we are doing to cover Alice's story, however I didn't want concerns to go ignored.

As an organisation, we are based in London. That is great for certain things, but I must admit is an obstacle when highlighting the story of a little girl from Shropshire.

I and the team have been up and down from Telford a lot over the last year, however I am planning a solo visit soon with a view at meeting people in the community, and discussing Alice's story, what we have been doing at the Alice Glaston Project, and so that I can be held to ethical account by the folks living within the community that is at the heart of what we are doing.

I would love to meet many of you in Much Wenlock over a coffee (on us). This may be to show your support (and I thank you), to ask questions about our three tiered programme, or to even ask the difficult questions. I would like very much to answer some of these in person. Your concerns have not gone unheard, unanswered internally, and will not be ignored (because we owe Shropshire more respect than that).

I think it would be better to do this in person, but some of the concerns raised we do have robust answers for.

1. Witchcraft accusation - We remain unclear as to what Alice was executed for. In fact, the only chance we could find out what she was hanged for is if we had a Time Machine. What we can do is research. Alice's case is like a giant jigsaw puzzle to us, but it's far from simple. I would love to share our findings (but I want to make clear, we are not saying 'evidence' we are saying 'research', two different things).
2. The second thing is the film. Now, I want to make clear, that AliceGlaston.com operates separately from this. Our main aim is to seek the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. We also have plans for a privately funded memorial, but we are not ready to discuss this yet, but our ideas for this stretch far beyond just Alice. But the film is an exciting opportunity for us to highlight Alice's story. I have seen comments that this is being done for commercial gain. Whilst we must be transparent that it is a commercial feature film, an £11,500,000 budget project relies heavily on its film investors. You can't have investors without wetting their appetite, but you can't make the film at all without the investors money. What I will say is that investors will not have any creative input. What really counts is the story that's being told, and the screenplay is something very special. With that, I am authorised by the above-the-line Executive Producers to give you, the people of Shropshire a little bit more than we are giving anyone else. With that -

Dreams of an Eleven Year Old Witch

The film took years to develop. That was because of the limited resources we have on the Alice Glaston case. What we do know is extremely bare. Not enough to develop a 2 hour story with.

I believe vehemently that film making is one of the single most impactful means of informing. If people watch this film, and take an interest in Alice's story (even by way of a simple prayer) then I'm happy. Ultimately, I do not believe this little girl deserves to be forgotten.

One of the first challenges the creative team had, was deciding what "crime" she was hanged for. This is extremely difficult as no one alive today knows, or possibly can. But this was a critical decision that needed to be made. I can go into more details privately why witchcraft was selected, but everyone working on this cares about doing this right for the real Alice. This was a brave decision of the creatives.

The title "Dreams of an Eleven Year Old Witch" has a lot of interest. I understand the concerns for the name, however the title was not declared until after the completion of the screenplay.

Take the film "Lion" with Dev Patel. It does not make an ounce of sense on paper. It's not until you watch the film until the end that you realise the reasoning.

The title Dreams of an Eleven Year Old Witch hits the right notes, but it's one of these things where you realise 'why' when you read or watch it.

I would like to highlight that the film is based on Alice's story, but is a work of ficture. The script focuses on Alice's life for just over half of the film. But it is far from shy about the tragic realities.

Film Making is a business first and foremost. No different to setting up a small business from home. The independent film sector contributes £380 million to the UK economy annually.