The “second mother” of Oxford university student Matthew Janney says she is “thrilled to bits” about his fledgling romance with Harry Potter actress Emma Watson.

Rugby-playing Matthew’s father David died aged 42 of cancer when he was a toddler and his mother Jill raised him and his sister Jemima, 23, alone, before succumbing to breast cancer in 2008 when he was 16.

Mr Janney then moved in with family friends Coralie and James Day, who became his unofficial guardians while he completed sixth form at £18,900-a-year King’s College School in London.

Mrs Day, 57, a director of a property company with her husband, 50, whom she married in 2003, said an “excited Matt” had broken the news of his new relationship to them a fortnight ago.

Speaking from the family’s £5 million home in London, Mrs Day said: “We are thrilled to bits that he is seeing Emma Watson. We are looking forward to meeting her soon.

“Hats off to her for finding such a wonderful young man. There is nothing bad anyone could say about Matt. He is absolutely lovely.”

She said she hoped the couple would visit soon, adding: “After Matt’s mum died I became his second mother. I took him up to Oxford when he started there. I am very proud of him.

“He is very close to my son Harry whose father, my first husband, died. They have a lot in common.”

Matthew, 21, and actress Emma, 23, went on holiday last week to the Caribbean and pictures of them kissing and cuddling on a beach were first published in the Mirror – which also broke details of the relationship before the story went around the world.

Source: mirror.co.uk