Tribute as mother of Evans dies just before show airs
CHRIS Evans paid an emotional tribute to his mother after learning of her death moments before he was due to go on air yesterday.
The BBC radio presenter pulled out of his breakfast show after 92-year-old Minnie died yesterday morning.
Sports reporter Vassos Alexander stepped in to present the show and read a touching note from the DJ to his listeners. Describing his mother as an ‘incredible woman’, Evans, 52, said the family had been prepared for her death.
He said in the note read by Alexander: ‘The reason I’m not with you today is because just before I came on air my mum passed away and I needed to go straight back home to be with my family.
‘But it’s all OK, in fact it’s very OK. Mum needed to be at peace. Moreover, she deserved to be at peace. We’ve been ready for this for some time now and, as she has throughout her life, in death she has brought us together.
‘She was an incredible woman. Anyone who’s ever met her will tell you that and ultimately there was no battle lost, only a life won. Every single day. I’ll be back tomorrow. If mum had the first idea I might not have shown up today because of her, she’d have been furious.’
Evans has presented the BBC Radio 2 show since the retirement of Terry Wogan in 2010. Mrs Evans, whose husband Martin died in 1979, managed a corner shop and later became a nurse. She had two other children. In 2003 she fought breast cancer and Evans, who kept listeners up to date with her activities, said he saved her life by paying for her to be treated with the revolutionary drug Herceptin.