'President Johnson was in tears': remembering Harold Holt

By Jacqueline Maley
Updated December 13 2017 - 8:08am, first published December 12 2017 - 12:22pm

A prime minister drowning in rough surf is the stuff of movies, except it famously happened here. Fifty years on, Harold Holt’s niece recalls an awful day, a gentler time – and hitching a ride home on Prince Charles’ jet.

Sir Harold Holt spearfishing at Portsea, in Port Phillip Bay, Victoria shortly before his death.  Photo: Alan Lambert
Sir Harold Holt spearfishing at Portsea, in Port Phillip Bay, Victoria shortly before his death. Photo: Alan Lambert

In 1967, Sue Holt was a 21-year-old Australian living in a chaotic, 13-person share-house at the non-posh end of Chelsea. As with so many of her compatriots, she was fulfilling her dream of a year in London – spent waitressing and wearing miniskirts with greater impunity than was possible on the streets of Sydney's Pymble, where she grew up.