David Jason and his wife Gill have been married since 2005. (Image: Getty)
discovered he had a daughter he never knew existed after receiving an “astonishing letter” asking him to do a paternity test. The , was left shaking as he read the life-changing news that he might have a daughter, named Abi, who had been unknown to him for over half a century.
He described a tumult of emotions, ranging from “wonder and amazement, through anxiety and heartache, to fear and outright panic”.
In his memoir, , he said that the first person he told was his wife, Gill, and she was equally as “stunned and as discombobulated” as he was.
David and Gill have been married since 2005 and share a 23-year-old daughter named Sophie.
Once the initial shock had worn off, David and Gill agreed that he should do the test and, if it came back positive, then they would meet Abi and “open our arms to her”.
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David Jason met his long-lost daughter in 2022. (Image: David Jason)
He wrote: “The more we thought about it and talked about it, and the more we read and reread the letter and absorbed what it was telling us, the more we reached the same overriding emotion about it: sympathy for Abi – for this woman who had obviously been going through a turmoil of uncertainty about her parentage, and had been doing so for a long time…
“I’m so grateful that Gill was so supportive and understanding about it all.”
David had a brief relationship with Abi’s mother, actress Jennifer Hill, in 1970. , she welcomed Abi and married Geoffrey Davion, who Abi believed was her father until his death in 1996.
David, accompanied by Gill, met Abi in a London hotel in 2022. Sharing how he felt, he said: “There was an inevitable sense of distance, and a pang of sadness for those missing years, all that lost time.
David Jason with his daughter Sophie and wife Gill. (Image: Getty)
“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.
“But Abi and I, of course, never had that chance, which is sad in itself, and now here she was, entering my life for the first time, but as a grown woman.”
The pair are now close and regularly meet up along with Abi’s son Charlie, .
Jennifer, whose acting credits include Doctor Who and the James Bond film Octopussy, died last summer.
Sir David expressed his hope that Jennifer found some peace in knowing that Abi had at last uncovered the truth about her origins.