Phil Archer when the show began airing nationally on 1 January 1951. During his time with "The Archers", Painting wrote a best-selling book entitled "Forever Ambridge" and wrote over a thousand scripts for the show between 1966 and 1982. Painting was later inducted into the Guinness World Records for being the longest-serving actor, without a break, in a single soap opera. In later years, Painting's appearances on the show became limited due to his ill health. On 29 October 2009, two days after he had gone to the recording studio, Painting died. BBC Radio 4 controller, Mark Damazer, said "Norman Painting was
Angus Imrie Mortimer's "A Voyage Round My Father". In 2014, Imrie joined the cast of the long-running BBC Radio 4 series "The Archers", based on a rural farming community in the mythical village of Ambridge, to take the role of Josh Archer previously played by child actor Cian Cheesbrough, the teenage son of David and Ruth and one of the main members of the Archer family. In the same year, he played the part of cabin boy Pip in "The White Whale" at Leeds Dock, in which he sang "Amazing Grace" from the top of the set after having fallen into the