Nimmo leaves treasures to love child

The bequest reads like a typically touching gesture from a proud father to a favourite son.

'To Mr Justin Nimmo my gold crested cufflinks,' it states, adding that the boy should get 'all ancient Roman, Greek and Egyptian artefacts and my ivory chessboard and pieces'.

But behind the details of the will drafted by Derek Nimmo lies an extraordinary story of family secrets and feuds. At its heart are two brothers - one who was largely unknown in life and one who has been forgotten in his father's death.

The legal document makes no mention of it but Justin Nimmo is actually the actor's illegitimate son, the product of a six-year affair with an actress known only as Anne.

His existence only emerged publicly after Mr Nimmo, the star of the BBC TV comedies All Gas And Gaiters, Oh Brother and Oh Father, died following a fall in 1999.

Before then, even close friends such as Maureen Lipman and Clement Freud had no idea Mr Nimmo had a fourth child. Justin, who saw his father regularly throughout his life, was born in Hammersmith in July 1969 and brought up in Hampshire.

While Mr Nimmo was not named on Justin's birth certificate, she recorded herself curiously as Anne Nimmo, an actress. She is believed to have later married.

Justin, who is 31, spoke for the first timeabout the warm relationship he had with his father. 'I saw my father regularly throughout my life,' he said.

'I lived with my mother in a number of places, including Hampshire and London, and he would regularly come and visit me at weekend and take me out for trips. I remember spending a lot of time in nice restaurants from a young age. Unfortunately he was abroad and working a lot of the time so he couldn't visit me every weekend. But he would do so whenever he was able to.

'I had a great relationship with my father and it's nice to have been remembered.'

Justin, who is a solicitor, said he regularly visited the Nimmo family at their Northamptonshire home from a young age and that all of Mr Nimmo's children and his wife knew him well.

'My father's family have known about me for years and years and years,' he said. While Justin is remembered in the will alongside Piers, Mr Nimmo's 34-year-old middle son, daughter Amanda Christie, 42, and his wife Patricia, there is no mention of his eldest son Tim.

The 44-year-old was left entirely out of the £550,000 will in an act of vengeance which has taken the family by surprise.

When Mr Nimmo was admitted to hospital for heart surgery in 1986, the two hadn't spoken to each other for 18 months after a falling out. Mr Nimmo's will was made before the operation.

Even though they made up shortly afterwards when he went to visit his father in hospital, the actor never redrafted the document.

Yesterday Tim, an impresario, said he did not want to comment on the argument, which he said had left no legacy of bitterness. Indeed, he was at the actor's bedside with Piers, Amanda and their mother when he died two years ago.

'He may have left me something by other means,' said Tim. 'It's not the biggest thing in the world, is it?' Mr Nimmo died aged 68 in February 1999, two months after falling over at his West London home.

Known for his razor-sharp wit and distinctive stutter, Mr Nimmo had a reputation as an intensely private and loyal family man. Under the terms of his six-page will, the bulk of his estate has initially been left to his wife of 44 years.

Other beneficiaries include the Garrick Club in London, which receives a Derby china figure of the Shakespearean character Falstaff, which the actor used to keep in his sitting room.

Mr Nimmo, who was a leading figure in the campaign to oppose women's membership of the gentlemen's club, once said of it: 'The only excuse for joining the Garrick is to get away from women.'

Other bequests to his friends reflect his gregarious nature. One is left two dozen bottles of claret from his cellar while another is left two large square decanters 'filled with the finest cognac and malt whisky, plus labels'.