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Until the Bee Gees walked into her life Dwina had always shied away from marriage. But she liked the idea of having a child with Robin, having recognized his creative spirit, his gentleness, the poet in him. She liked the fact that they had a shared love of history, mythology, old churches and ancient buildings. Robin was captivated by the realization that they were so similar. Both were creative, argumentative, stubborn, incapable of holding himself in her. For a while they lived together in Robin's house in Barnes, South-West London, but it wasn't until 1984 that, with a one- year old son in their life, they felt a need for some sort of commitment. That was when fate took them to the Prebendal. As Dwina remembers, "We came to the arches of the gatehouse and stepped into paradise. It was just what we were looking for." What they were looking for was the sort of country pile which would befit one of the world's richest rock starts. The place had to possess the spiritual and historical undercurrents which both of them, especially Dwina, could plug into. The Prebendal fitted the bill on all counts and so the Gibbs set to work on restoring it to its former glory. They've scoured the country in their search for medieval doors and wood-paneling and furnishings and even managed to find a suit of armor for the vast living room. Dwina has hand painted the ceilings in delicate blue with gold starts, copied from Ryecote Chapel. The estate's chapel, too, had been transformed with great precision and devotion from a crumbling structure to a spiritual shrine. "We had a lovely service her when Andy died." "It all adds up to a very expensive undertaking, but it's been worth it," Robin enthuses. "You don't really own a property like this. You're merely custodians for the next generation. But we love what we're doing, love the ambience of the place. We even love the ghosts!" "When we first moved in here," explains Dwina, "the house wouldn't accept anything new. Washing machines would break down, televisions, video machines, telephone systems. They wouldn't function properly. An engineer from BT came out and said, "It's not us, it's the house." A piscina bowl in the prayer room periodically fills up with ice-cold water. "We just bless ourselves with it every time it appears," grins Dwina. At one o'clock every morning there is the sound of a clock being wound up in the Coronation Room, and from time to time John the gardener, who worked on the estate in the 1600's, walks through the wall from the dining room into the living room. "Ken's seen him," says Robin. "He's always dressed in sackcloth."
"A psychic woman from Wales, who's never been here before and knew nothing of the history of the place, visited us one Christmas with some mutual friends. She came in and said, "There's a man here called John the gardener and he's very happy with the lady of the house who's put in a herb garden." "We'd put a herb garden in that summer. It was very interesting because she would not have known about that." Something else that has been installed in the garden is a stone circle based on the configuration at Stonehenge, in fulfillment of Dwina's lifetime ambition as a Druid. The family's tennis courts were taken up t make room for the gargantuan stones. "I had no idea what it was going to look like," say Robin. "I didn't realize it was going to look every bit as good as Stonehenge." Does he share Dwina's love of all things mystical? "Yes, but she's more obsessive about it than I am. It's a lifelong love affair with her. She was drawn to Druidism when she was nine, whereas I'm only interested in certain aspects of it." The Gibbs maintain an easy, relaxed relationship, which is something quite unique in pop music. It is not the easiest job in the world being the wife of a world-famous rock star. The average wife does not open her front door to find nubile, scantily dressed girls camped on the step. But that has happened to Dwina more times than she can remember, both at Thame and at their Gone with the Wind style mansion in Miami, where all three Gee Bees have second homes as well as their own recording studio. Broad-minder Dwina doesn't bat an eyelid when beautiful young women throw themselves at her husband. Jealous? More often than not she feels sorry for them. "She doesn't see women as a threat," says Robin. Interestingly, she has never thought of herself as glamorous enough for him. When they met she was overwhelmed by his good looks, whereas she had never thought of herself as attractive. She wondered if she ought to have her nose changed. "I know about all this, but I think she's very attractive, that's why I'm with her," says Robin. They both feel they have come a long way since their fateful meeting 13 years ago. "I've become more creative," says Dwina, who has just finished a novel called The Shackles, and whose yet-to-be-published books include The Last Mile, Under Wraps, and the final part of her Cormac trilogy, Cormac: The Sage. "I've always been fairly creative, but before I met Robin I was more concerned with paying my mortgage and making ends meet. I didn't have much time to do what I really wanted. I can now sit down and write and not have those kinds of worries."
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