Lesley Evans, the Gibb brothers’ sister, called herself the fourth Bee Gee, but with a difference, only the most devoted fans know she even exists.
Lesley Evans, born Gibb, 67, has stayed in behind the scenes for most of Bee Gees career – apart from one amazing performance standing in for her brother Robin at a sell-out gig in 1969.
As she faces life with her only remaining brother Barry, 65, she has revealed some of her memories growing up in one of the most famous families in the world, and how she once came Robin’s rescue, saving his life.
Still deeply grieving for her brother Robin Gibb, who died last Sunday, the dog-breeder revealed how she pulled Robin from a river when he was just 18 months old in the Isle Of Man.
Lesley Evans told The Sunday Mirror: “Robin just fell in. I remember him floating along with his eyes staring up.
“I went in up to my waist and grabbed him under the arms until people came to help us both out of the water.”
The mother-of-seven smiles as she recalls how a brotherly spat meant Robin Gibb refused to go on-stage in 1969 and she was forced to become his replacement.
As a new mother of two young children, Lesley Evans had to rehearse a month before the performance at the Talk of the Town.
She said: “I secretly became the fourth Bee Gee. It was amazing. I loved it on the night. I know Robin watched it and he said he felt very choked up about it.”
But Lesley Evans was destined to be in showbusiness, instead she met her husband, an Australian salesman Keith Evans, and went on to have her children.
And since Robin Gibb’s death her mind has been going back to her childhood and memories of her family.
She describes her childhood home as surrounded by music and love.
But Lesley Evans says her brother Robin Gibb was far from chilled out.
“We all used to say, <<Oh, ¬Robin’s a stuffed shirt>>, because he was always very pompous. He never called me Lesley. It was always sister. I would not see him for 10 years and I could walk into a room and he would say, <<Oh, hello sister. How are you?>>.”
The last time she saw Robin Gibb was in Sydney in 2010, just after he had emergency surgery and thought he looked extremely underweight.
Lesley Evans said in the days before Robin Gibb’s death Barry rang her and said her brother would not pull through.
And she adds her mother Barbara, 93, is devastated and can’t understand how she has lost three sons so young.
Maurice Gibb died at 53 while Andy passed away at 30 from heart inflammation.
