Minnie Driver unearths father's secret double life on TV show The Swansea-born businessman, who gave financial advice to the Royals including the Queen, later moved to Barbados, where Minnie and Kate were brought up. Driver said having her son Henry made her want to find out more about her late father's life through the genealogy TV show - which will be shown on BBC One on Wednesday. She said: "Having a baby obviously changes everything and Henry made me want to connect with who I really am I suppose. My dad died a year and three months after Henry was born and I'm so grateful that they had even a little amount of time together and Dad just delighted in Henry. My parents met in 1962 and they were together for 13 years. They broke up when I was six and during that entire time he was married to someone else and had another family. I didn't know until I was about 12. My dad lived a very split life. We just did not talk about where he came from. He spoke very succinctly about his mum and his dad but I never met my grandparents or saw even a photograph of them together - I always wondered what they looked like. I want Henry to have a different experience to what I had. Where I come from there are these big gaps and I would like to fill those gaps for him. During filming Driver was astounded to discover her father, born in Swansea in 1921, was a Second World War hero who was awarded a medal for bravery. He was a member of the RAF during World War Two and won a medal for his part in the battle of Heligoland Bight in 1939. Reading about her father's heroics as a gunner in the war brought the actress to tears. She discovered he put a fire out with his hands in a desperate bid to save his plane, his crew and his life during a daring raid on a German airbase. His plane crash landed into the freezing winter waters of the North Sea and Mr Driver launched a life raft. His efforts helped save the lives of three injured crew members - earning him the Distinguished Flying Medal. But Driver discovered her father threw it in the Thames because he did not think he deserved it after failing to save his best friend Walter Lily in the disaster. He went on to have psychiatric treatment as he found it difficult to get over. The actress said: "It seems unbelievable what he did. It reads like a movie script. I feel very close to a part of my father that I never knew. She also unearthed the secret he was previously married to a woman named Ada Wood Stancliffe, and the couple had a son, the actor Leslie Stancliffe. He died in 1947 but his daughter - Driver's half-cousin Jean - is alive and the family history show brought the two relatives together for the first time. The actress said: "It makes me wonder for my father, why he chose to keep everything so secret. It would have been nice to talk to him about it all. Who Do You Think You Are? is on BBC One on Wednesday at 9pm.