Robin Gibb reveals: 'Doctors told me I had an hour to live'

By David Wigg

Last updated at 7:54 AM on 25th November 2011

Determined to get well: Robin is being cared for at home by wife Dwina

With a wide, impish, welcoming smile, Robin Gibb was standing waiting for me at the front porch of his magnificent 12th-century Oxfordshire home .

He appeared thinner than I had seen him look for a long time, but he explained that he’s never weighed more than 9??st, so there was no reason to think that anything was wrong.

It was only later that day, when he confided that he’d been to see a specialist about his recurring stomach cramps, that alarm bells rang.

After an examination and a scan he had been told he’d got one hour to live unless he had immediate surgery.

‘I told the surgeon, “Hang on, I’ve only got cramp,” recalled Robin. ‘But he said I’d actually got an intestinal blockage and it could be about to burst. The way he put it to me was blunt: “The only way out for you, pal, is through the operating theatre.”

‘I was petrified. I’d never been in hospital before. I had the op there and then and after three days felt a lot better.’

Our conversation took place in the summer, almost nine months after the operation. I didn’t know then that three months before we met Robin had been diagnosed with liver cancer.

He and his wife Dwina had decided not to say anything publicly to allow him to quietly undergo treatment. Only in October, after viewers were shocked by his gaunt appearance on Alan Titchmarsh’s ITV chat show, did the true extent of Robin’s illness emerge.

Then, earlier this month, he was rushed to hospital after a 999 call from his home. His 91-year-old mother Barbara and older brother Barry flew in from their Miami homes to be with him.

Never far from their minds will be the sad loss of Robin’s twin brother Maurice, who died eight years ago from complications following the same medical emergency to unblock a twisted intestine.

Robin told me he has never got over that — ‘We were like one person, with one soul,’ he said — or the grief of losing his youngest brother Andy from a heart infection in 1988, at the age of 30.

This week Robin, 61, publicly thanked fans for their get-well messages. And he is determined to be well enough to hear his latest musical project performed next year.

Working with his 28-year-old son R.J. (Robin-John), he has composed an impressive classical work entitled The Titanic Requiem, to commemorate the 100th anniversary next year of the sinking of the liner, and he plans to have it played at the Royal Albert Hall in London in April.

They have been working on this hour-long piece for a year and it has been recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

In the imposing surroundings of his home, a former monastery once visited by Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, he told me how he had fulfilled a long-held ambition. ‘I’ve always wanted to write a classical piece and I put it to my son that we should do it together because he’s got a great talent for music,’ explained Robin.

‘We were like one person, with one soul': Robin, pictured with older brother Barry (right) said he has never got over over the death of his twin Maurice (left)   

‘Anyway, a lot of our music with the Bee Gees is classically orientated. If you just take the voices away, you can hear that it is classical pieces, traditionally. I love stuff like Mozart. I don’t like rock opera with back beats.’

Robin was halfway through this project when his life-threatening blockage was diagnosed.

‘All this time I’d thought it was wind cramps,’ he said. ‘But the surgeon said that was typical of the way it manifests. The blockage was so bad that he was surprised it hadn’t burst the day before, but it was too dangerous to delay any longer.

‘The relief was enormous, and afterwards I needed no painkillers. Not even an aspirin. I have a vegetarian diet, and a great appetite. Everything seemed to go back to normal.’

Once on the mend he was determined to finish his Titanic composition. Writing and recording all night, the way he prefers to work, he would go to bed just as the sun was rising and sleep until around 1pm.

Shock: Robin's gaunt appearance on the Alan Titchmarsh show on the Southbank sparked widespread concern

He also re-recorded one of the Bee Gees’ most iconic hits, I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You, with the harmony group The Soldiers, released last month as the official Poppy Appeal single.

But it is the Titanic Requiem that now takes up all his attention. He is fascinated by the story. ‘It’s not a morbid piece,’ he said. ‘It is a celebration of the time this great ship made its maiden voyage, and it will have that feeling in the music.’

Unsurprisingly, after such a close brush with death, Robin was in reflective mood with me. Although the Bee Gees broke up after Maurice died, they remain a powerful entity in music, so Robin inevitably made comparisons with today’s stars.

‘It’s hard to tell how the fame really affected us because it all happened so fast. We always had a belief in ourselves but not for fame or riches. One of the things about young people starting out today is they just want to be famous and make money.

'When we began, we just wanted people to like our songs. We simply enjoyed the passion of making music. We never thought about the material things it could bring us. You went into the studio and it was like a big toy shop.’

The Bee Gees had more than 50 international hit singles and sold 110 million albums. They have the biggest song catalogue in the world, along with Lennon and McCartney. ‘I can turn on the radio every day and hear five Gibb brothers’ songs,’ said Robin.

‘That still gives me a thrill. And yet you hear new artists and they are not composing. They’re not creating catalogues — so what will happen in the future?’

While still schoolboys living in Manchester, Barry, Maurice and Robin perfected the art of close harmony singing and won prizes at cinema screenings for their vocal performances.

‘There was a time at the beginning when the three of us slept in one bed! We were a very poor family. My dad had about five jobs so we could survive.

‘It was post-war England in the late Fifties and we didn’t even have carpets on the floor.’

To find a better life, their father Hugh moved the family to Australia, where he worked as a photographer. ‘We lived in a run-down house. My mother got very sick from mosquito bites,’ Robin recalled. ‘They were hard times and often we just lived on chips.’

Australia didn’t live up to expectations and so the family returned to England. ‘We had nothing, except this blind faith in ourselves to pursue a musical career. It was almost as if we talked ourselves into it.’

Sounds of the Seventies: The Bee Gees (from left to right) Robin, Maurice and Barry Gibb in 1979

So where did they find the inspiration to write songs that were so mature when they were so young?

‘Love and relationships’, said Robin. ‘Where other guys, like Ray Davies of the Kinks, were writing about social problems, we were writing about emotions.

‘They were something boys didn’t write about then because it was seen as a bit soft. But people love songs that melt your heart.’

Robin says the most difficult part of his career was handling the 1988 death of his brother, Andy, who had experienced a failed marriage and was recovering from the after effects of cocaine addiction.

‘I was stunned. It was his 30th birthday. It was the first time I’d lost anybody. He was staying in this house. He’d gone into hospital for a check-up and two days later someone said, “He’s gone.” I said, “What, he’s left the hospital?” and they said, “No, he died.”

‘I still don’t know why he died. They said it was a heart infection.

‘Then in 2003 Maurice took ill. In two days he had gone. We were absolutely devastated. As brothers we were like one person. Me and Barry have always been the principal writers of the Bee Gees’ sound and Maurice was the glue that kept the personalities intact. We were kind of triplets really.

‘I feel blessed I was born into a family that had Barry and Maurice in it. On a creative level it’s like winning the lottery — you can’t choose that.’

I’ve Gotta Get A Message To You by The Soldiers with Robin Gibb is on sale now.