Painting, Norman

Norman George Painting was born on St George's day (23 April) 1924 at Leamington Spa, the son of Harry George Painting, a railway signalman, and his wife Maud Dyde. His sister, Edna, was over six years his senior. Norman attended Milverton Junior School, moving on to Leamington College. From an early age Norman displayed enthusiasm and flair for theatrical writing, production and performance: he wrote poetry from the age of ten and wrote and produced his first full play, 'The Deception', for a school variety concert in 1938, when he was fourteen. In 1938 when the family moved to Nuneaton, for a short period Norman commuted weekly back to Leamington College, but later attended King Edward VI School in Nuneaton. He was, however, obliged to leave before completing the sixth form due to the family's financial circumstances. He took a job for three years as an assistant librarian and studied for the Library Association examinations by correspondence course.

In 1942 Norman went up to the University of Birmingham where he studied English and Anglo-Saxon, took an active part in Guild work and with BUDS (Birmingham University Dramatic Society) performed in and directed a number of dramatic productions. He was not called up for military service due to poor eyesight and flat feet, and worked his way through university in a number of ways including by doing extra fire-watching. Having gained a first class degree, in 1946 he entered Christ Church, Oxford, where he tutored students of Exeter College in Anglo-Saxon whilst himself researching Old English poetic diction. In 1947, upon advice, he changed his course of research to romantic poetry and drama, writing a dissertation on the rewriting of Coleridge's 'Osorio'. With OUDS [Oxford University Dramatic Society] he joined a tour to France in 1948, and even after leaving Oxford he was invited back on its tour to America in 1950 in a company which included Robert Robinson, John Schlesinger and Peter Parker. His dissertation was failed; but by this time, 1950, he had already been working for some five years for the BBC as an actor and poetry reader. This involvement developed into writing news talks, features, children's programmes, poetry, original drama and adaptions and serials both in his own name and as 'Philip Bentinck', throughout the 1950s and 1960s. He later also wrote under the name of 'Bruno Milna', a name known to millions of followers of 'The Archers' radio serial, for which he was to write over 1,000 scripts between 1966 and 1982, which earned him a Writers' Guild Award in 1967.

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