When he was seventeen, Shiner joined the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, after which he became a signalman and a wireless operator, then a farmer. Army concerts gave him a taste for the stage.
In 1952 he was voted Britain's most popular local male star in cinema. He was particularly well known for military comedies.
He starred in the London production of Aladdin as Widow Twankey with Bob Monkhouse at the Coliseum in 1960. In retirement he owned a pub at Blackboys in Sussex. British Pathe News filmed a newsreel of him in his pub, being visited by Jimmy Edwards, in 1954.