by a wizard. In the mid-nineteenth century Alan's great-great-grandfather Robert had carved the face of a bearded wizard onto the face of a cliff next to a well, known locally at that time as the Wizard's Well. Robert Garner and his other relatives had all been craftsmen, and, according to Garner, each successive generation had tried to "improve on, or do something different from, the previous generation". Garner's grandfather, Joseph Garner, "could read, but didn't and so was virtually unlettered". Instead, he taught his grandson the folk tales he knew about The Edge. Garner later remarked that as a result, he was "aware of [the Edge's] magic" as a child, and he and his friends often played there. The story of the king and the wizard living under the hill played an important part in his life, becoming, he explained, "deeply embedded in my psyche" and heavily influencing his later novels. Garner faced several life-threatening childhood illnesses, which left him bed ridden for much of the time. He attended a local village school, where he found that, despite being praised for his intelligence, he was punished for speaking in his native Cheshire dialect; for instance, when he was six his primary school teacher washed his mouth out with soapy water. Garner then won a place at Manchester Grammar School, where he received his secondary education; entry was means-tested, resulting in his school fees being waived. Rather than focusing his interest on creative writing, it was here that he excelled at sprinting. He used to go jogging along the highway, and later claimed that in doing so he was sometimes accompanied by the mathematician Alan Turing, who shared his fascination for the Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Garner was then conscripted into national service, serving for a time with the Royal Artillery while posted to Woolwich in Southeast London. At school, Garner had developed a keen interest in the work of Aeschylus and Homer, as well as the Ancient Greek language. Thus, he decided to pursue the study of Classics at Magdalen College, Oxford, passing his entrance exams in January 1953; at the time he had thoughts of becoming a professional academic. He was the first member of his family to receive anything more than a basic education, and he noted that this removed him from his "cultural background" and led to something of a schism with other