The sisters embracing life
When it comes to making the most of life, sisters Joan Lyons and Diana McLaurin wrote the book.
Trying to find time to catch up with sisters Joan Lyons, 80, and Diana McLaurin, 78, is a major challenge.
The women lead busy lives, with passions that include golf, volunteering, bridge, travel, the arts and jam-packed social lives.
Underpinning these busy schedules is the sisters’ ethos of giving back. The duo, whose grandfather was Sir Edward Holden of the car brand fame, are significant benefactors to a variety of South Australian organisations.
Diana, or Didy as she is widely known, was the philanthropy ambassador for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and both she and Joan are members of the Friends of the ASO group of donors.
The sisters also support the Australian String Quartet, The Australian Ballet, the Adelaide Chamber Orchestra and Didy is also a foundation director of UKARIA Cultural Centre in Mount Barker.
Another important cause for this philanthropic duo is Operation Flinders, which supports at-risk youth through outback adventures. The sisters donate to the organisation’s foundation, supporting a team of young people each year to become involved.
“We also have quite a connection with the Ediacaran Fossils in the Flinders [Nilpena Station],” Didy says.
“Joan and I have sponsored the stabilisation of one of their fossil beds.”
When SALIFE arrives for a chat, Didy is wearing her Adelaide Zoo uniform, explaining she’ll need to head off soon for her weekly shift.
“I’ve been volunteering there for the past 15 years,” she says.
These trailblazing women are also heavily involved in the golfing world. Didy made history when, in 2021, she was appointed the first female president of the Royal Adelaide Golf Club in its 129-year history. She was also involved with Golf NSW for many years, and she and Joan were both on the national body, Women’s Golf Australia, from 1999 to 2004.
“It was quite unplanned that we’d both be on that board at the same time, very unusual, but that’s us,” Didy says.
The sisters currently play golf twice a week at Royal Adelaide, where Joan has also just been made an honorary life member.
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When asked if they try to limit all these sporting, philanthropic, artistic and social commitments to, say, three outings a week, the sisters laugh.
“More like three a day,” Joan says.
It helps with logistics that these spritely siblings now live next door to each other in Adelaide’s eastern suburbs.
For 40 years prior to that, both women lived on the land – Joan married and raised three children in Georgetown in the Mid North near Clare, before moving back to Adelaide 30 years ago.
Didy, who trained as a pre-school teacher, spent her married life in Holbrook, not far from Wagga Wagga in NSW. Sadly, Didy’s first husband Mac Halford died of cancer just five years after their wedding.
“Then Mac’s cousin Ron came jumping over the fence,” Didy jokes.
She eventually married Ron, moving to the far south coast of NSW before retiring back to acreage in Wagga Wagga.
Sadly, 20 years later, Ron, too, died of cancer and Didy, unsure what the future held, was tossing up her options when the house next door to Joan’s came up for sale.
That was 15 years ago and the sisters have been neighbours ever since, even knocking down the fence between the two properties to create more of a connection, and creating an opening in the backyard hedge for easy access.
“It’s been full on for the last 15 years because Joan was already going to all sorts of things and now, she gets to drag me along,” Didy jokes.
Family is a priority; Didy has stepchildren, while Joan has three adult children, Sam, Susie and Edward, seven grandchildren, one great-grandchild and another on the way.
Joan’s son Sam is currently on the board of the Holden Manufacturing Heritage Centre in Elizabeth, maintaining the family connection to the historic Australian company.
The extended family recently enjoyed a holiday to the Maldives, a surprise getaway organised by Didy for Joan’s 80th birthday.
“She wouldn’t tell me a thing about it but she said pack your bag and don’t forget your bikini, so I got a silver lamé one,” Joan jokes.
“We flew via Melbourne and there sitting in the airport was my best friend Jacqui who lives in Barwon Heads and I said, ‘What are you doing here?’ and she said, ‘I’m coming with you to the Maldives’.
“It was lovely. The kids loved the scuba diving and snorkelling and we ate lots of fresh fish. It was great to be all together.”
Global travel is another passion for Joan and Didy, who always holiday together. Forget retirement groups and grey nomad tours – this adventurous duo’s destinations read like a David Attenborough documentary list – Antarctica, Bhutan, Tibet, India, China, Myanmar, gorillas in Rwanda and Madagascar and the North West Passage to see polar bears – and the list goes on.
They don’t sit still for long. Their next getaway will be a trip to New York to see the Australian Ballet perform Oscar in October.
“The last time we were in New York we thought, ‘What are we going to do on the way home’, and we discovered a direct flight from Atlanta to Costa Rica so we thought ‘Why not?,” Joan says.
The only obvious indication of the sister’s Holden heritage is an historic “Holden” number plate in each of their living rooms, plus some framed memorabilia and historical photos in Didy’s hallway.
There are black and white photographs of their grandparents, Sir Edward and Lady Hilda Holden, plus photographs of their father John and mother Ibel, who was always known as Winks.
“Our grandfather, Sir Edward Holden, was the fellow that the car was named after and his parents came from England, and they started off the saddlers, Holden & Frost in Grenfell Street,” Joan says.
“Our father studied engineering at Cambridge and was also a test pilot in World War II.”
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Their father John also ended up working for the family company, but the Holden family’s influence in South Australia goes far beyond just cars. For almost a century they were among the state’s most important industrial, political, and civic families.
Didy and Joan’s aunt Dame Nancy Buttfield became the first woman to represent South Australia in the Australian parliament when she was elected to the Senate in 1955. Their grandmother Lady Holden also famously attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.
A large portrait of Lady Holden hangs in Joan’s hallway while in the living room is a small historical stool embossed with details of the coronation, a gift given to Lady Holden and all attending guests.
While their family connections and philanthropic work have brought some public recognition, Joan and Didy have always preferred to stay out of the spotlight, leading private lives.
However, that plan came a little unstuck last month when both received an Order of Australia in the 2026 King’s Birthday Honours Awards.
Joan was honoured for her significant services to the arts, and to the community through philanthropic support, while Didy was noted for her significant services to the arts, golf and environmental conservation.
“It’s a great honour,” Joan says. “We are very pleased and I think our parents would be proud. It’s probably a bit unusual to have two sisters on the list.”
Didy adds: “It’s just something we enjoy doing, giving back and being involved.”
The sisters say their love of the arts was fostered by their mother who would take to them see the ballet and classical music concerts as children, along with their older sister Anne (who lives in Queensland), and Joan’s twin brother, Edward.
“Our grandmother went to the Conservatorium of Music, and she’d play the piano at Christmas time and we’d all gather around,” Joan says. “Because Edward and I were the twins we’d have to stand up there and sing. The two older cousins were in the Scouts, so they had to raise the flag.”
It was a happy childhood for the Holden children with time spent at their grandparents’ palatial home in Brougham Place, North Adelaide.
“It had a cobbled driveway that went all the way through to Ward Street with stables at the back,” Joan says. “All I wanted was a horse.”
The family lived at St Peters before moving into their grandparents’ home when Joan was 14 and Didy was 12.
“In those days bread was brought in a horse and cart,” Didy says. “We used to love it, the smell of that bread. And the milkman would pour the milk into our billy on the back porch.
“Just saying that makes us feel as if we are ancient.”
The sisters also remember the freedom to “roam the streets” as children, so long as they were home by dark. They also rode their bikes to Wilderness School in Medindie.
Today, included in Didy’s framed memorabilia in the hallway are a couple of her old school reports circa 1960, one of which reads: “Didy must learn to curb her animal spirits and keep her sense of humour within limits.”
Weekends back then were also spent at Mannum on the River Murray after their father bought a speedboat.
“We’d be allowed to take our friends but Mum never came,” Didy says. “She’d have a meal ready for us all when we got home and that could be up to 10 or more people.”
Sadly, the family was struck by tragedy some years later when Joan’s twin brother Edward died in a car accident aged just 25.
“It was a very difficult time and hard for our parents to accept, particularly Dad given Edward was the only son and heir,” Joan says.
As they reminisce about the ups and downs of life, the sisters seem in unison. They talk over each other at times, as siblings often do, finishing each other’s sentences, correcting each other and laughing at some of the silly memories over the years.
What is most prominent, however, is the lovely connection between the sisters. Today, both Didy and Joan say what continues to inspire them, what fuels their sense of fun and excitement, is the simple joy of life.
“The joy of giving, the joy of meeting other people, the joy of being involved,” Didy says.
“I don’t really think about ageing, other than a few aches and pains to remind me. Another reminder is people standing up and giving you their seat on public transport.
“Age isn’t for the faint hearted but my advice is to keep active and don’t think about it.”
Joan nods in agreeance, “Keep busy,” she says.
This article first appeared in the July 2026 issue of SALIFE magazine.
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