The young Alan Garner was described by one of his childhood friends as “a sissy and a mardy-arse”. But then Garner had just pushed him into a great clump of Roman nettles (“they were the worst”) to find out whether dock leaves really could soothe the pain from so many stings.

Widely acclaimed as one of Britain’s greatest writers, in this memoir Garner, born in 1934, recalls his childhood growing up in the Cheshire village of Alderley Edge during the second world war. At school they practised wearing gas masks during lessons and made rude noises by blowing against the rubber sides.

Outside school, as well as rough-and-tumble games with his friends, “we talked about why the sky was blue, why blood was red”. His grandma complained that “I was always on the go and asking ‘Why?’” He kept a hedgehog and fed it slugs (“I once ate a grey slug, but it was gritty”), saluted the Yank soldiers who gave him sugar cigarettes, and explored the surrounding, mythically tinged countryside: the Wizard’s Well, Castle Rock and Devil’s Grave, where his father and uncle tricked him into believing the devil was chasing him: “I waited and waited and yelled till there were only sobs left.”

This is a hauntingly beautiful memoir, written in a deceptively simple style and filled with the innocence of childhood, when “there is a dock for every nettle”.

• Where Shall We Run to? is published by 4th Estate (£8.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.