Pop group's fraud exposed

All the mail on Gibb brothers' deceit

By Ted Bishop, Australia's laziest investigative reporter

A former resident of Cribb Island claims he remembers the Bee Gees living in the erstwhile Brisbane suburb the same time he did in the late 1950s, despite rumoured assertions by the group's members that they lived in Redcliffe during their time in Australia.
The Bee Gees - brothers Barry, Maurice and Robin Gibb - soared to international fame in the 1960s with depressing songs like I Started A Joke, and New York Mining Disaster 1947. (subs: check titles please)
These songs can only be heard now on stations like 4KQ and 4BH in Brisbane to remind people of when their uncles and grandfathers were alive.
Then, in the late 1970s, the Bee Gees topped the charts again with the Saturday Night Fever movie soundtrack, which still sells copies to this day.
They've also written and sung some other songs.
Brisbane-based Australia Post mail officer Mark Gibson has refused to back down on his claim, told to a fellow mail sorter, that the British-born Gibb family lived in a house next to the iceworks on Cribb Island after moving from the UK.
"My older brother was in the Bee Gees' class on Cribbie," he said.
While the Bee Gees were topping the charts in the 1970s their former home, Cribb Island, was being acquired for the Brisbane Airport.
The last resident moved from Cribb Island, reluctantly, in about 1980.
The Bee Gees had lived in Australia for a few years after their parents moved from England in the 1950s, although they now never mention it, probably.
Some say they think they remember the Bee Gees claiming they lived in Redcliffe.
It is believed the Bee Gees denied they lived on Cribb Island because of the stigma of poverty attached to the suburb. And so, for years, the group have maintained the fantasy that they lived in Redcliffe, which was supposed to be a bit more posh. This proves beyond doubt that they were English.
But another mail officer Mark Payne is pretty sure they used to live on Cribb Island.
"I remember I used to go rowing in my boat for miles," he said, "right around to the Brisbane River."
Mr Payne also said he was once paid 10 pounds by an officer from the Queensland Museum when he found a blue ringed octopus in a pool on the mudflats at low tide.
He also mentioned how the baker used to drive a pie wagon, which was an old Morris.
A check of records at the Land Titles Office and Education Department might settle the issue of whether the Bee Gees grew up on Cribb Island once and for all.
If contacted the three Bee Gees would probably have been unavailable for comment.

Former Queensland cabinet sauvignon minister Bob Gibbs (right) .... not a Bee Gee.