SIR David Jason has admitted he grew up terrified at the idea of having a lovechild – but clueless about condoms.
The Only Fools And Horses veteran, 83, told of his shock and joy at discovering he had unknowingly fathered actress Abi Harris, now 52, after a fling with her mum Jennifer Hill in 1970.
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He first got into acting as he thought it would get him sex, but was massively confused about how to get protection.
He also told in his autobiography David Jason: My Life he grew up in a society that struck the fear of God into unmarried couples about having a lovechild.
And he said he was playing the field in the 70s – around the time he unknowingly had Abi – and dumped a string of women at the time as he hated the idea of being tied down with kids.
Sir David said in his 2013 book about how he and his pal Micky Weedon were approached in 1954 when they were randy teens by amateur theatre club boss Doug Weatherhead – who asked the sex-obsessed lads to join the troupe as they had “about twenty girls and no males”.
Sir David added: “Would amateur theatre have lured my boyhood self eventually, of its own accord, without this additional ‘abundant girls’ aspect?
“Perhaps, with enough encouragement and enough prodding from external sources.
“But what I can say for sure is that Doug Weatherhead had caught me and Micky at a very vulnerable moment.
“By this point in our lives, puberty had begun to work its steamy havoc.”
Despite his fear of getting a girl pregnant, Sir David added: “The idea of using a condom was fraught with complication to the point of impossibility.
“There was the difficulty of acquiring such a thing, for a start, which would require a staggering act of face-to-face boldness in a chemist or a barbershop.
“And, in any case, they were joke objects – invented, so it seemed to us, not for the serious purposes of birth control, but entirely so that boys would have something about which to make smutty, but somehow ceaselessly amusing, jokes involving the word ‘johnny’.”
Sir David added he initially struggled to get a girl into bed in his teens as “the morals of the day, certainly in working-class communities, had set themselves firmly against sexual experiment”.
He also grew up painfully aware of the “terrible stigma” attached to “getting pregnant outside marriage”.
Sir David said about growing up terrified of the idea of love children: “Unwedded conception spelled nothing less than social ruin, for you and your family, not to mention the poor soul that you brought into the world.
“Girls had to bear the most formidable brunt of that, of course, so if they came across as cautious, even prim and proper, who could blame them?
“Boys, for their part, trembled in the knowledge that, nine times out of ten, a slip-up would mean marriage. And marriage was forever, and forever was a very long time.”
One of David’s earliest loves in the early 1970s when he had his lovechild was Carole Collins, sister of rock icon Phil.
She caught his eye as part of the cast of a London production of Peter Pan, in which she played a squaw.
But they split after he felt he was “getting in too deep” and a relationship might hurt his acting ambitions.
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‘I WAS IMMATURE’
He said about their break-up, which came soon after she took him to a Genesis gig: “The split was my fault. I began to feel I was getting in too deep.
“I was immature and once again I got frightened about going down a road that would lead to responsibilities that might, in turn, take me away from the theatre.
“I think that was what drove the wedge. There could have been no other reason.”
He added similar break-ups “happened a number of times”.
Sir David said: “It happened with Fanny Barlow, who wanted us to shack up together. It happened before that, with Sylvia.
“When the person I was with got too close or I felt that I was getting too involved, I drew away.
“I was very adept at snuffing out the spark, I’m sorry to say. An absolute expert at it.”
SIR DAVID’S FLINGS
One lover he doesn’t mention from his days as a West End playboy in the ’70s was his long-lost daughter’s mum Jennifer.
Sir David’s fling with her came in 1970, around two years before he started seeing Carole.
They first met when they starred in a theatre production of Under Milk Wood at the Mayfair theatre, London.
Jennifer, who appeared in James Bond film Octopussy, later married fellow actor Geoffrey Davion, a star of Miss Marple, and Abi grew up believing he was her father until his death in 1996.
But after talks with her mum, Abi, who has starred in Doctor Who, started to suspect she could be Sir David’s daughter due to their strikingly similar nose.
Abi wrote to David asking if he would take a paternity test, which he agreed to.
She started her message with the quote from Under Milk Wood: “To begin at the beginning. Or to be more precise, my beginning?”
Sir David said about the DNA test coming back positive: :To say it was a surprise to find out that I had a daughter from years ago is an understatement.
“However, on settling with the news, I am delighted that I am now able to get to know Abi and so we meet up when we can. My wife, Gill, and daughter, Sophie, have been very supportive and understanding and have embraced Abi and welcomed her and her young son into her now wider family.”
Abi said about her joy at being part of a blended family: “In discovering my father’s identity, I am starting to piece together my own.
“Of course, I am tickled pink and incredibly proud but, frequently, 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 his days of playing the field, Sir David had an 18-year relationship with Welsh actress Myfanwy Talog.
After her death from breast cancer in 1995, Sir David met Gill Hinchcliffe, who gave birth to his daughter Sophie Mae in 2001, when he was 61 years old.
He and Gill married in 2005 and still live together in Ellenborough, Buckinghamshire.
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