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 with 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.