David Jason details poignant moment long-lost daughter found out he was her dad

Daily Mirror

4 days ago

Only Fools And Horses legend Sir David Jason opens up about the emotional journey of learning he had a daughter he never knew existed
Sir David Jason has opened up about the astonishing moment he found out, at 84, that he had a daughter he'd never known existed. The actor, best known for Only Fools and Horses, learned in 2023 that Abi Harris, born from a brief romance with actress Jennifer Hill during a 1970 production of Under Milk Wood, was his biological child.
Discussing the revelation on Gyles Brandreth's Rosebud podcast, he recalled: '[Myself and Jennifer] parted our ways and we drifted apart and she got involved with someone else and married him and that was it.'
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Decades later, the truth emerged when Abi confronted her mother about her origins. ''That chap you call dad is not your father,'' Hill told her. Abi's shocked reply was: ''What do you mean he's not my father?'' Hill explained: ''I think you'll find your father is David Jason, because we had a fling together when we did these shows.''
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Jason, though initially overwhelmed, described their eventual connection as a 'happy ever after' and welcomed Abi into his life. The emotional impact was detailed in his memoir This Time Next Year, where he confessed: 'There is the pang of sadness for those missing years, all that lost time.'
He was blindsided when Abi reached out via a heartfelt letter. '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.'
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The letter included a request for an anonymous DNA test. 'At no point in the nearly fifty years that had gone by since then had that thought had cause to enter my head,' he wrote, admitting the idea that he could have fathered a child in 1970 had never occurred to him.
Despite the initial turmoil - 'wonder and amazement, through anxiety and heartache, to fear and outright panic' - his wife Gill Hinchcliffe, with whom he shares daughter Sophie, was 'so supportive and understanding.'
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When Jason finally met Abi, there was an undeniable 'sense of distance,' something he called 'such a complicated thing to process, for us both.' Alongside the discovery of Abi, he also learned he had a grandson, 10-year-old Charlie.
Abi, now an actress like her father, had long suspected the truth. Not only did she know of Jason's past with her mother, but she'd also noticed their shared features - especially the shape of their noses. She had grown up believing her father was Geoffrey Davion, who passed away in 1996.
The reunion has since blossomed into a warm relationship. Abi and Charlie joined Jason's family for Christmas in Buckinghamshire. In a poetic twist, Abi - who has appeared in Doctor Who - even acted alongside her mother and Jason in a 2008 revival of Under Milk Wood, the very play that first brought her parents together.