TALENTED Alice Hayes won a free year’s family pass to the Blue Planet Aquarium as well as a luxury choccy Easter egg — but the youngster said the best prize was recreating her winning plate design.

The 11-year-old from Farnworth, who is a pupil at Highfield Primary School, won the chance to design a plate for Wills and Kate out of almost 1,000 hopefuls.

The Bolton News Design a Plate competition was held to mark the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Alice said: “Getting to actually make my own plate has been the best prize. I’ve not done anything like this before.

“I didn’t realise it was such a complicated process.”

Alice, whose favourite subject at school is art, spent two hours painstakingly transferring her design on to a plate at the Pottery Studio of Westhoughton yesterday.

The plate was then given a finishing glaze and put into a kiln for eight and a half hours.

The Pottery Studio of Westhoughton holds children’s parties and weekend classes for youngsters, so studio owner Anne Battersby knows her stuff when it comes to young designers.

She said: “She’s done really well, there were so many entries. It is a nice design.”

The talented youngster, who will watch the Royal Wedding on television tomorrow before going to dance rehearsals in the afternoon, will receive a year’s free pass for herself and her family to use at the Blue Planet Aquarium in Ellesmere Port.

Confectioner Slattery’s will also give her with chocolate egg while educational company Kip McGrath has offered to give the youngster extra help with her schoolwork.

The quality of the entries was so high and proved so popular that there are also three runners-up, who will each receive a free family trip to Blue Planet in the form of a day pass, as well as a chocolate egg from Slattery’s.

They are: five-year-old McGinlay Parkinson; Jayden Kitchen, aged eight; and Caitlin Higham, aged seven. The Bolton News teamed up with Bolton Council and the Mayor and Mayoress of Bolton, Cllrs John and Lynda Byrne, for the competition.

Alice will be presented with her finished plate at the Town Hall this weekend. It will then go on display at the HMS Dido Association Day in Victoria Square on Saturday when celebrations will be taking place for the Royal Wedding and St George’s Day.