Garner was born in the front room of his grandmother's house in Congleton, Cheshire, on 17 October 1934. He was raised in Alderley Edge, a well-to-do village that had effectively become a suburb of Manchester. … 展开

With his first wife Ann Cook he had three children. In 1972, he married for a second time, this time to Griselda Greaves, a teacher and critic with whom he had two children. In a 2014 interview conducted with Mike Pitts for … 展开