Sir David Jason opens up on sad reason he split from mother of his long-lost daughter

discovered he had a long-lost daughter last year, at the age of 84. The actor learned about Abi’s existence 52 years after he had a brief relationship with her mother, the late actress Jennifer Hill.

Jennifer, a actress, was known for roles in Octopussy (1983), Human Traffic (1999), and Grange Hill.

David and Jennifer began their romance in 1970 when they starred in Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood.

However, it didn’t last long, with David explaining in his new autobiography that “short flings were all I seemed able to manage” at the time.

He wrote in : “I was so entirely focused on building my career that I fled instantly from any relationship that threatened to turn serious on me.

“Relationships meant ties, you see… and those ties would be bound to hold me back professionally in some way.

“Well, that’s how I saw it, anyway. And for better or for worse, that would remain my attitude for many years after this – until, I guess, I had got sufficiently established that I could relax enough to think properly about fully admitting someone else into my life.

“And I’m so glad I did wait, because it meant I eventually found the person who was to fill that gap, the wonderful Gill who was to become my wife.”

David and Gill met in 1995 following the death of his . They welcomed their daughter, Sophie, in 2001 and got married in 2005.

Thinking back to his split from Jennifer, David insists that their relationship ended “amicably”.

He continued: “We separated perfectly amicably, neither of us having misled the other about our intentions or where we were at in our lives. It was just a very nice interlude.”

Jennifer married actor Geoffrey Davion and her daughter, Abi, believed Geoffrey was her father until his death in 1996.

Last year, Abi sent David a letter asking him to take an anonymous paternity test to confirm whether he was her father – but insisted that she never wanted financial support.

Recounting the momentous day when he received the letter, David wrote: “You will be unsurprised to learn that my hands were shaking by now. What had I just read? I had to go back and read the whole thing again. And then I had to read it again. And then again after that.”

He agreed to do the test, which confirmed his paternity, and he soon met Abi at a London hotel.

Recalling their first encounter, he said: “I’ve never experienced such a jumble of competing emotions. We were both feeling them. There was a lot of elation kind of, ‘Can you believe it? ‘ and, ‘What an amazing thing!’

“But there was an inevitable sense of distance too, and a pang of sadness for those missing years, all that lost time. So strange to feel this instant intimacy between the two of you, this obvious bond, and, at the same time, to be aware of this gap between you: so much common ground, and yet all that ground uncovered.”

The pair are now close and regularly meet up along with Abi’s son, Charlie.

David is now planning a Christmas with all his family.