JOBY SESSIONS 44 THE STORYTELLER Alan Garner’s years at <strong>Oxford</strong> heavily influenced his children’s fantasy tales and have resonated across 50 years. John Garth meets the author, one of the subjects of a major Bodleian exhibition
Naomi Canton and Dr BS Chandrasekhar revisit Queen’s College together In the window seat in Cloisters, looking out over the moonlit snow that had stopped falling, and seeing the tower and listening to the chimes, I said, ‘If I don’t get in here, I think I’m going to die.’” So Alan Garner OBE arrived at Magdalen for entrance exams in January 1953, picturing himself in the Chair of Greek one day. But after just four terms he left <strong>Oxford</strong> permanently for his native Cheshire. <strong>Oxford</strong>’s loss was literature’s gain, and this summer Garner is the focus of a Bodleian exhibition of children’s literature along with Tolkien, CS Lewis, Philip Pullman and others, drawing on their papers at the library. When Garner dropped out, he had already begun The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, an instant classic of Alan Garner’s first book, which drew on old legends ‘At the end of my first term, I realised that I didn’t want to go home’ 45 children’s fantasy set in Alderley Edge, where he had grown up. A sequel, The Moon of Gomrath, hurled twins Colin and Susan deeper into an idiosyncratic and potent brew of Norse and Celtic folklore, yet left the plot unresolved: Garner had tired of the children. But last year, after a 50-year hiatus and numerous unrelated books, Garner unexpectedly completed their story with the elliptical and thoroughly non-juvenile Boneland, in which Colin is a deeply disturbed astronomer at Jodrell Bank, searching the night sky for his missing sister. As Garner, now 78, talks for the first time at length about his relationship with <strong>Oxford</strong>, the dish of Jodrell Bank’s radio telescope looms massively in the view from his book-lined study in a restored medieval hall. “I love the contrast,” he says. “The great dish two fields away.” Ancient and modern, hands and head, Cheshire and <strong>Oxford</strong>: such are the poles that have propagated Garner’s creative spark. By the time Garner won a place at Manchester Grammar School and first fixed his eye on <strong>Oxford</strong>, well-meaning adults had begun a severe deracination. For generations the Garner menfolk had been left-handed craftsmen, but his mother closed that road by stuffing his left hand up his liberty bodice to enforce right-handedness. At six, his teacher washed his mouth with soapy water for “talking broad” (Garner still uses ‘received pronunciation’, which he articulates with exceptional clarity). Meanwhile childhood sickness brought him close to death, confined him for months in bed and isolated him at primary school. He discovered books – an undiscriminating hunger for words – and a talent for running from bullies. Garner was able to go to grammar school only because means-testing meant his fees were waived. It was a culture shock, not least for his family. They were thrilled that “Alan was going to get an education” but, he says, “There was no concept of what that was. I soon learnt that it was not a good idea to come home excited over irregular verbs.” They felt threatened; he felt alienated: the classic pickle of the first-generation educated (vividly dramatised in Garner’s Carnegie-winning novel The Owl Service and its successor Red Shift). He loved Aeschylus, Homer, and the subtle expressiveness of Greek regardless. Though at 18 he was Britain’s fastest schoolboy sprinter and could have had a career in athletics, the Regius Professorship in Greek became his goal. So Garner came to Magdalen as an applicant. His interview was abysmal until he was asked if he thought it were possible to break the four-minute mile. “I said, ‘Yes, Roger Bannister will do it in May or June next year.’ They were on to me like a hornet’s nest. I stood my ground: and that was my interview.” National Service supervened, as a subaltern with the Royal Artillery. “I was stationed at Woolwich, ➺ www.oxford<strong>today</strong>.ox.ac.uk | oxford.<strong>today</strong>@admin.ox.ac.uk | @ox<strong>today</strong>
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