Jasper Conran's mother: My son hasn't seen me for ten years and he won't say why - Telegraph
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Jasper Conran's mother: My son hasn't seen me for ten years and he won't say why
Jasper Conran's mother has told of how her son has refused to speak to her for    ten years and she does not know why.
Shirley Conran, her ex-husband, Sir Terence, and their son Jasper appear happy together at a book launch in 1993 Photo: ALAN DAVIDSON
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Shirley Conran, the novelist author of Lace said she had not seen fashion designer Jasper Conran for 10 years after they drifted apart.
Jasper, 52, who is behind the J by Jasper Conran range for Debenhams, was born to Mrs Conran and her ex-husband, restaurateur and designer Sir Terence Conran.
His parents divorced when he was two and his brother, Sebastian, was five.
In an interview with a Sunday newspaper, Mrs Conran, 79, said her son had said they no longer had a close relationship.
"I haven't seen Jasper for 10 years. But he won't tell me what the problem is,” she told the Observer.
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“One day, I read a quote in a newspaper from Jasper saying, 'I used to have a close relationship with my mother, but now we have a distant one.' I thought: I'm going to want an apology from the journalist for this.
“I rang Jasper's office, but I couldn't get through and eventually I established this was the case.
“We have seen each other in a crowd a couple of times and he said on one occasion that he knew I wanted to know what it was about, and that he would tell me, but he hasn't done so."
She said she coped with their estrangement by thinking of his success and happiness.
“I'd rather he was successful and happy and didn't see me than he was dead or something. I was lucky to have a devoted son for 40 years,” she added.
Mr Conran has previously spoken of his unhappy childhood when he was uncomfortable with his body, before encountering the difficulties of a famous parent.
“It's difficult being the child of a living god and having to carve out your own place in life,” he said in 2009.
“For some reason everyone expected us to become drug-addled dropouts by the time we were 18.”
Mrs Conran has dedicated the reissue of her racy bestseller, which was first published 30 years ago, to her sons Jasper and Sebastian.
Mr Conran could not be reached for comment yesterday.