As veteran actor Sir David Jason's autobiography is published, he chats to Hannah Stephenson about reprising his role in Open All Hours, red carpet reluctance and revelling in late fatherhood.

 

"Just call me Sir David," says Sir David Jason, aka Derek 'Del Boy' Trotter, an ever-present twinkle in his eye as the laughter begins.

The 73-year-old award-winning actor, whose credits read like a list of TV classics - Only Fools And Horses, Open All Hours, Darling Buds Of May, A Touch Of Frost, to name but a few - is in fine fettle as we meet to discuss his memoir, My Life.

There are too many amusing anecdotes to mention as he relives the fun he had with the late, great Ronnie Barker, who became his mentor and friend during his early days at the BBC, and his later escapades as the inimitable Del Boy alongside Nicholas Lyndhurst and Lennard Pearce.

These, coupled with the scrapes he's had while scuba diving - one of his favourite pastimes - and flying, all make for a riveting read.

Barker always saw Jason's comic potential and wrote a number of parts with him in mind, including the hapless Granville in Open All Hours, a role Jason will be reprising in a Christmas special, along with Nurse Gladys Emmanuel, played by Lynda Baron. Filming starts in three weeks' time.

"I always wondered what happened to Granville and thought that he might have taken over the shop - Roy Clarke [the writer] had the same thought," says Jason.

"Of course, it will seem strange without Ronnie. I don't believe I can stand up to his Arkwright but we are going to have Ronnie's presence there. We refer to him all the time and his picture is there, looking down."

They're currently looking for a young actor to play Granville's assistant - and Jason reveals that pop star Robbie Williams asked in jest if he might play the role.

"We did this interview with Robbie Williams, and he said, 'I wouldn't mind a part' and I said, 'All right, if you don't mind being a walk-on' and he said, 'Yeah, I'd be a walk-on, or I could be Granville's assistant!' In a way, we couldn't possibly do that. I mean, I wouldn't stand a chance!"

For all his fame and fortune, Jason remains a private character living a quiet life away from the screen at his home in Buckinghamshire with his wife Gill Hinchcliffe, 20 years his junior, and their 12-year-old daughter, Sophie.

He says theirs is not a celebrity lifestyle and on the odd occasion he and his wife find themselves on the red carpet, it's generally not a comfortable experience.

"I'm normally clammy-palmed with a combination of fear and embarrassment, and we end up making a poorly disguised dash for it, rushing along the carpet, blinking blindly into the flashlights, hanging onto each other like a pair of silly old fogeys.

"I didn't set out on this journey to chase fame. I chased success. I wanted to be better at my job than I was."

He recalls being invited to watch tennis at Wimbledon one year and was relieved to see that Hollywood star Jack Nicholson was sitting in front of him.

"Gill and I thought, 'Great, no question of us getting bothered here. People will be too busy bothering Jack'. Wrong. While Jack sat there, utterly untroubled, watching the tennis, a steady stream of well-wishers made their way along our row to say hello - to the point where, eventually, people around us felt obliged to intervene, 'Leave the poor bloke alone'.

"Now, who's the bigger star do you suppose? Me or Jack Nicholson? Well, naturally, it's Jack Nicholson. But he's such a big star that there's something slightly intimidating about him.

"People kept their distance. Whereas I'm Del, I'm Pop Larkin, I'm approachable."

Of course, Only Fools And Horses remains the show for which Jason is most famous and he recalls how the show raised his profile to new heights.

"When we walked out on the street, I would get people shouting, 'Hello, Del Boy', whereas Nick would get, 'Rodney, you plonker!' It was very difficult for him. I learned to live with it."

His fame has impinged on his time with Sophie: he's tried Legoland and Thorpe Park but is approached so much that it's easier to stay at home or go to theatre matinees in the West End instead.

"Anything with songs and ice cream in it is fine by us. That's our time together and it's a precious thing. I show her the theatre. I show her where I come from."

He also opens up in the book about how he struggled when his girlfriend of 18 years, actress Myfanwy Talog, died of breast cancer in 1995.

"I didn't cope very well," he says. "I was very lucky that work helped me through it as a sort of therapy. When you've got to try to make people laugh, that bit [of your life] has to be put on the shelf because you've got to pretend that everything's all right."

Gill, who was a floor assistant at Yorkshire TV when they met, helped him cope with his grief, he agrees.

"She was a very warm and generous person who helped me through that by being understanding."

He became a father for the first time at the age of 61. "Sophie's becoming a young person now. She's very bright but when she was between four and seven was the funniest time. She used to make me laugh such a lot. She's very serious now. You girls, you're an absolute pain!"

He was never worried about being an older dad, more about how his life would change.

"When I first discovered Gill was pregnant, that was the big worry. For three months after that I was wrestling with how it was going to change my life. There was a lot of heart-searching at first.

"But by that time my career was pretty firm. When I first started, I was footloose and fancy-free because I had to go where the work was. I've been very lucky."

Looking back on his career, Jason says Ronnie Barker was a major influence and they worked together on such shows as Hark At Barker, Porridge and Open All Hours. Jason called him 'The Guv'nor'.

"He taught me that you could be very famous but you don't have to be a difficult, rotten so-and-so.

"The reputation of a lot of famous people was one of difficulty and Ronnie proved to me that if you enjoy what you're doing, there's no need to be difficult."

He doesn't see too many comic geniuses coming through, he confesses, because most of them swear too much.

"There's a propensity in comics to swear. It's the wrong road to take because it demeans the subtlety of the language and the performer.

"Have you ever heard anyone say to you, 'I didn't like that programme last night because they didn't swear'?"

He's careful about the comedy he watches on TV because so often it's not suitable viewing for his daughter, Sophie.

"James Corden is very good. [Michael] McIntyre is an absolute genius. He is brilliant and I love his work. We watch Strictly. I was asked to do that - no way, Pedro! Miranda's good, my daughter loves that.

"We don't watch EastEnders because it misses any sense of humour. There's no light relief."

While he clearly loves family life, Jason shows no signs of slowing down on the work front. He's doing the voices for a series of new children's cartoons on Five and has other projects in the pipeline.

"How many people can say they wake up in the morning and really look forward to spending the day at work? That's been my life's reward." Lovely jubbly.

:: David Jason: My Life by David Jason is published by Century, priced £20. Available now