 His father was Richard F. Evans, District Officer and later Resident of the West Coast for the North Borneo Chartered Company Government, which ruled North Borneo until the 1942 Japanese invasion in World War II.Evans studied in a Japanese primary school in Keningau during the occupation.After the war he was schooled at Catholic mission schools at Sandakan, at Jesselton (now Kota Kinabalu) and at Kuching, Sarawak.