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Actor Jason Watkins has remembered his daughter Maude on what would have been her 18th birthday.
The Crown star lost his daughter, aged two, with wife Clara Francis, to undiagnosed sepsis in 2011.
Sharing a photo of her to Instagram, the Bafta-winning actor wrote: “Maude would have been 18 today. This is the most grown up photo I can find of our beautiful girl, striding across the lawn.
“Today, she would have been about to jump into the world.
“Who knows what she will have done with her precious life.
“How would she have strode through it? She would have met people, and loved them, and been loved.
“She could have made her own world – and changed the world too.
“Made her own ripple, large or delicate, that would have touched and rocked so many; Every new day, she would have nudged another’s in to joy – as she did with us, when she was here.
“Now today, as an adult, what waves she would have made..what love she will have given.
“The love we would have given in return, has never stopped.
“We will never stop loving you. Never stop imagining you with us Maude. You are loved, my sweet, sweet girl..xx.”
Watkins and his wife are patrons of Child Bereavement UK.
Watkins admitted he found it difficult to return to work after the loss during an interview with the i. in 2025.
“I was thinking, ‘What is the point of this pretending?’” he said.
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However, although he continued working for financial reasons, he says it doubled up as therapy.
“I think it was being somebody else or having somebody else’s thoughts,” he said. “It was work that was all-consuming.”
Watkins paid tribute to his daughter at the 2015 Baftas while accepting the award for leading actor for his role in The Lost Honour Of Christopher Jefferies.
He said at the time: “If there is a reason why I’m standing here it is because of our Maudie, so thank you.”
Watkins has two other children with Francis and two older children with his first wife, actress Caroline Harding.