 Alan Garner was born in the front room of his grandmother's house in Congleton, Cheshire, on 17 October 1934.He grew up not far away, on Alderley Edge, a well-to-do rural Cheshire village that by this time had effectively become a suburb of Manchester.Growing up in "a rural working-class family", Garner's ancestry had been connected to Alderley Edge since at least the 16th century, with Alan tracing his lineage back to the death of William Garner in 1592.