Graeme Holt
Ron and Olga Holt started life in Sydney before moving to Wagga Wagga. They had a family of sons. In 1980, Ron and Olga were excommunicated by the Exclusive Brethren. This process ripped their family apart when two sons remained with the Exclusive Brethren.
The sadness of leaving the Exclusive Brethren never left Ron and Olga. To be forced to sever contact with two sons and their families was a fearful price to pay. The Exclusive Brethren doctrine of Separation is a cruel taskmaster with much blood on its hands.
Over the years following the 1980 family division, two of the three sons who left with them, David and Robert, settled in Sydney. The third son however, Graeme Warren, became something of a world traveller. He also travelled under the name ‘Graeme Hansen’.
With their sons now grown men and no longer living under their roof, Ron and Olga made the decision to return to their roots. In 1991, they initiated contact with the Exclusive Brethren in Wagga Wagga with a view to seeking restoration. At that time, Dick Pridham and his son John constituted the Wagga Wagga Exclusive Brethren leadership. Dick Pridham was the brother-in-law to John and W. Bruce Hales, respectively father and uncle to the current leader, Bruce D Hales. Even at that time, he was a man with ‘connections’.
Under the worldwide leadership of Neche pig farmer, James Symington, directives and rules were as rigid as at any time and Ron and Olga would have had the situation laid out very clearly. Separation demanded no contact with those not in fellowship and this meant they would have to now sever contact with the three sons who had left the fellowship with them ten years earlier.
Ron and Olga contacted Graeme to tell him that due to their intent to return to the Exclusive Brethren, he would no longer be welcome to stay at the family home. A shocked Graeme flew back to Australia from Japan in an attempt to reconcile with his parents. Doubtlessly Ron and Olga would have told their son the ‘price’ - ‘join the Exclusives or you’ll have to live somewhere else’.
An increasingly depressed Graeme then travelled to the only other family members who were allowed to talk to him, his two sibling brothers in Sydney. His emotional turmoil increased over the next few days as he realized his family was being ripped apart yet again.
Just days after speaking to his parents and then his sad journey to Sydney, Graeme Warren Holt took his own life. He was found hanging from a railway bridge in Sydney’s Flemington Markets on October 28th, 1991.
The grieving family started to make funeral arrangements. Ron and Olga were obviously deeply involved with their planned restoration to the Exclusive Brethren. Even though they had not yet been restored, they contacted Exclusive Brethren leadership to seek permission for the brethren in Sydney to bury their son. Permission granted, the distressed parents then travelled to Sydney and met up with David and Robert for a viewing of Graeme’s body in a North Ryde chapel.
What happened next defies belief.
Following the viewing of Graeme’s body, Ron and Olga took the opportunity to have a picnic lunch with David and Robert in a nearby park. While they were comforting each other in what might be the last time they would be able to eat together, the Sydney Exclusive Brethren arrived at the chapel, claimed the body of Graeme Holt and proceeded to bury him.
As Graeme was not in fellowship, “… only a couple of Exclusive Brethren attended”. Graeme Warren Holt was buried without his family or friends present.
The emotional impact of this insult to Graeme’s memory and family cannot be underestimated. The two brothers Robert and David were naturally incensed. None of Graeme’s friends were told of the funeral arrangements or even that a funeral had taken place.
If Ron and Olga Holt hoped by placing themselves under Exclusive Brethren authority in the matter of their son’s funeral, that this would speed their restoration, they were to be disappointed. It took another 10 years before they were accepted back into fellowship during 2001.
We are at a loss to offer a final comment and will therefore close the story of the unnecessary death of Graeme Warren Holt and the graveside insult to his memory with a quote from a contemporary observer of these events:
“First they turn a young man into a confused, unhappy and ‘lost’ individual and then, even in death, treat him with total indifference.”
