YORK-BORN Oscar winner Dame Judi Dench celebrates her 80th birthday today and has revealed she has a new man in her life - more than 12 years after the devastating death of her husband.

The actress has told The Times she is in a relationship with David Mills, who ran a wildlife centre near her home on the Surrey-Sussex border.

Dame Judi, said the relationship started after she agreed to open the centre's red squirrel enclosure in 2010.

She said it was helped by their mutual love of wildlife and they had got together in a 'very gradual and grown-up' way, but managed to keep the relationship out of the press for some years.

She revealed they did not live together and had no plans to do so. "We are much too independent. And he is very busy. He has a business to run."

She said her grief for her husband Michael Williams, who died in 2001 of lung cancer, had changed but never left her. "It becomes different. It alters. It doesn't become any less."

Dame Judi's interview came as the BBC prepares to screen a drama at Christmas based on Roal Dahl's story Esio Trot, which stars her and Dustin Hoffman.

She is also in the middle of filming Richard III with Benedict Cumberbatch, in which she plays the Duchess of York.

She told of her exploits on her first day at The Mount School in York almost 70 years ago, when she let off a fire extinguisher while 'horsing around' with a chum, who is still her friend today.

She also revealed the importance to her of her elder brother Jeffery, who died earlier this year, citing him as the inspiration for her decision to ditch theatre design to attend the Central School of Speech and Drama, from which she went into the Old Vic Company, playing Ophelia.

She said she spent time with Jeffery in Cornwall last year and intended to take David to meet him, but he died sooner than she expected.

York Press:

>>> 11 of Dame Judi's most famous roles