By Lindsay Swan
Fifty years ago, in the Johannesburg winter of 1975, two women met in a PR agency. One, was an independent, globe-trotting pre-war baby; the other was me, a young Scot 13 years her junior. My chance encounter with Sylvia Holder would spark a half-century of friendship, adventure, and world-changing impact, much of it from Hove, where she settled in 1998 on a self-described “whim.”
Our story is now told in our recent memoir Accidental Lives, published by Black Spring Press.
A Friendship Forged in Fun and Fearlessness
From our earliest days in Johannesburg, Sylvia and I worked well together and quickly became friends. She was launching the Wombles; I was a Womble, in fact, all of them. Soon after, we organised the first South African Celebrity Tennis event, featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and (some of) the Monkees.
Back in London, for more than 20 years, we ran Holder Swan Public Relations, often compared to Absolutely Fabulous. Certainly, the office fridge was always stocked with champagne for good days, bad days, or simply any days.
What fun we had! Our eclectic mix of clients took us on safari in Zambia, to Mexico’s Mayan ruins, Iceland’s volcanoes and the high rises of Hong Kong. At home, we publicised Chichester Festival Theatre, Hampton Court Flower Show and many more. Other celebrities crossing our paths included Roger Moore, Joan Collins, Elton John, Diana Rigg and Cliff Richard, as well as members of the Rolling Stones. I was even in a movie, Greenfingers, with Helen Mirren.
When not travelling the world, we held court in our quirky London office, the original Chalk Farm farmhouse, thought to have been artist Walter Sickert’s studio. Our entrepreneurial sidelines included a City sandwich bar and PR training business. Underpinning everything was and is our friendship, our shared delight in the absurd, sense of adventure, belief in the power of the possible and enthusiasm for making things happen.
Tragedy and a Promise
In 2003, everything changed. Sylvia, now retired and newly settled in Hove, received a late-night phone call, the kind we all dread. Venkat, whom she’d met by chance as a skinny 12-year-old on an Indian beach, and whose education she had sponsored, had been killed in a road accident at just 27.
Heartbroken, she returned to Kovalam, Venkat’s village near Chennai, determined to help in some way. On impulse, as is her way, she promised to bring free education to every child in the village as, strangely for such a poor place, families had to pay fees for secondary education. Despite being 65 and newly retired, with no experience of education, charities, or India, Sylvia set up the Venkat Trust, naturally with me by her side.
Twenty-one years on, the Venkat Trust is a huge success story. It has built a 1,000-pupil higher secondary school, runs a 400-child sponsorship programme, and pays university fees for 75 students every year. The India side of the operation is run by Janikiraman, or JR, Venkat’s older brother, who rang Sylvia with the news of Venkat’s death on that fateful day, a friendship forged across cultures, continents and generations.
Brighton, Hove and the Spirit of Possibility
Hove, Sylvia writes in Accidental Lives, “just seemed like a good idea.” In fact, it became a launchpad for the Trust. Many of our trustees hail from Brighton and Hove. In March 2025, 71 runners from Brighton’s UberMummies group, led by its extraordinary founder Alex Smallman, raised £34,000 for the Trust’s university fund during the Brighton Half Marathon.
Alex, our unstoppable Honorary Fundraiser, is already planning a bigger effort for 2026. We hope each runner will bring a friend to join the 1 March event, the ripple effect could be life-changing.
A Celebration of Friendship, Power, and Purpose
Accidental Lives isn’t just a memoir. It’s a book about tragedy turned to triumph, ‘sliding door’ life changers, chance encounters and a glorious friendship.
As the author, biographer and our fellow traveller to India and Africa Dame Margaret Drabble writes, “This book gives an entertaining and moving account of the adventurous lives of that fine duo, Holder and Swan, two fearless, funny and brave women. It’s a story of friendship and enterprise and extraordinary generosity, of triumph over tragedy, with some amazing anecdotes and an exhilarating sense of life lived to the full.”
Rockwater’s Book Club Social is hosting a special Accidental Lives evening at Rockwater’s Lodge, Western Esplanade, on Tuesday 7 October from 6–8pm, hosted by Ciara Teefey, where Sylvia and I will do an authors’ evening of stories, readings and a Q&A.
To support the Venkat Trust or for more information on how to join next year’s UberMummies Brighton Half Marathon team or sign up for the Rockwater Book Social Evening on 7 October, contact info@venkattrust.org.uk.
Content Page Blurb
From Friendship to a Force for Change
When two women met by chance in a Johannesburg PR agency in 1975, they couldn’t have imagined that their friendship would one day transform thousands of lives. From celebrity-filled boardrooms to classrooms in rural India, their story is a testament to possibility, purpose, and the power of connection.
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