Celebrity Gogglebox star Kristin Scott Thomas on 'terrible shock' of heartbreaking double loss as a child

Dame Kristin Scott Thomas has been on our screens in some of the best films for decades. The five-time BAFTA Award and Olivier Award nominee has stunned viewers in the likes of Four Weddings and a Funeral and The English Patient.

But she once spoke out about a double personal tragedy in her life as she prepared to star in The Military Wives. Kristin, who is set to appear in Celebrity Gogglebox tonight for Stand Up To Cancer, discussed her own personal history of loss within a military household.

The actress lost both her father and her stepfather to similar aviation disasters. Her RAF fighter pilot father Simon died in a jet crash when she was only five years old.

Read more

Her mother Deborah went on to remarry, but her second husband, who was also a jet pilot, died in a similar accident years later. Kristin opened up about the moment she found out her dad had died, previously saying: "Mummy was pregnant and I can remember when she told us.

"In one breath it was: 'Daddy has had an accident and won't be coming home and I'm going to have a baby'. So it sort of took the sting out of it."

Kristin's mum was left battling to raise five children solo. Speaking about her upbringing Kristin said: "It was a struggle growing up. You can't bring up five kids on a naval pension and have it be easy and comfortable.

"My mother had to fight tooth and nail to give us the education she gave us, ringing on doorbells, telling people, 'I went to this school my children need to go there'. I'm fantastically in awe of her courage. It made me so angry when people assumed I had this easy life."

The details of her father's death were revealed in 2015, when the previously classified air investigation report came to light. It disclosed the tragic details of March 17, 1966, when Simon Scott Thomas, a Lieutenant Commander in the Fleet Air Arm, perished while performing a high-risk nocturnal training exercise aboard a Sea Vixen aircraft.

Reflecting on her father's demise, Kristin said: "It's only later that you realise what a terrible shock it was. I can still remember him. It's like having a little film playing in your head. I can still remember his smell, it's really weird." She added: "The thing that breaks my heart is the smell of engine oil."

Deborah later found love again with Simon Idiens, a fellow lieutenant commander, but tragedy struck once more in 1972 when his Phantom jet crashed into the sea off Trevose Head in Cornwall.