Sir David Jason: Only Fools And Horses actor in shock after discovering he has 52-year-old daughter

After 52 years, Sir David Jason has discovered he has another daughter and a grandson.

The Only Fools and Horses star, 83, from London, has welcomed his daughter, Abi Harris, 52, and grandson, 10, into his family and is building a relationship after years of not knowing they existed.

Abi began suspecting Sir David might be her biological father after hearing about his brief relationship with her mother, actor Jennifer HIll and realising she had the same shaped nose as him.

Sir David and Jennifer’s relationship began in 1970 when the pair starred in Under Milk Wood at London’s MayFair theatre. That same year, in October, Abi was born.

Despite ending their relationship, the pair stayed in touch with one another, and Abi and Sir David even crossed paths with one another, neither one realising that they were father and daughter.

“To say it was a surprise is an understatement,” Sir David told The Mirror.

After a mutual friend commented on the physical similarities between Abi and Sir David during one of the times their paths crossed, Abi began to believe Sir David was her biological father.

For a while, she kept the news to herself, but as her son, Charlie, began to grow up, she began to fear there could be a line of her family’s hereditary health conditions she knew nothing about.

With this at the forefront of her mind, Abi wrote Sir David a letter and opened with a line from Dylan’s play which read: “To begin at the beginning. Or to be more precise, my beginning…”

In the letter, she explained her hunch and asked if he would take a paternity test to which Sir David agreed. Nonetheless, he was still surprised when the test came back confirming that Abi was in fact his daughter.

While the news came as a surprise to Sir David, his wife Lady Gill white and their daughter Sophie, after having time to process, Sir David revealed everyone has been “very supportive and understanding.”

Since finding out the news, Abi has begun to discover her own identity after years of not knowing her true heritage.

The 52-year-old said:  “Of course, I am tickled pink and incredibly proud but, frequently, completely overwhelmed with sorrow for the years we have lost.

“After a measured start, now I hope we can consciously make time to see each other more often, so that I can master the art of being the best big sister and build a ­meaningful father-daughter relationship in its truest sense.”

After being welcomed into the family with open arms, Abi and Charlie even spent some of the festive period with Sir David at his home in Ellesborough, Bucks.