He began to appear on
BBC radio while at the University of Birmingham, and continued while also performing as an actor with
Oxford University Dramatic Society. He left Oxford University in 1949 to work for the BBC in Birmingham. Painting had worked as a performer, interviewer, writer and producer for the BBC before he first appeared as Philip in
The Archers in 1950. He became a script writer for the series in 1966, following in the footsteps of
Edward J. Mason,
Geoffrey Webb,
David Turner and
John Keir Cross. He wrote in his memoir of the programme,
Forever Ambridge (named after
Ambridge, the fictional West Midlands village in which the programme is set), that he believed that Geoffrey Webb, who had died some time before, was guiding his hand as he wrote. He wrote about 1,200 episodes under the pseudonym
Bruno Milna. Artistic disagreements with a then editor, plus a general disillusionment with the BBC management, led him to retire from writing scripts in 1982 and to stick to just performing them. The character of Phil Archer developed from the lusty young romantic lead of the early episodes, working on the neighbouring Fairbrother estate, into a father and grandfather, replacing
Dan Archer as the patriarch of Brookfield Farm and a senior figure in the series. Perhaps his most famous moment occurred on 22 September 1955, when his wife,
Grace Archer (née Fairbrother), was killed while trying to rescue a horse, Midnight, from a burning barn – the episode being transmitted on first day of
ITV broadcasts. The character survived Painting by four months, dying peacefully in February 2010. ==Awards and honours==