Born in 1967

If you were born in 1967, the year ended with one of the strangest events in Australian political history. On December 17th, Prime Minister Harold Holt walked into the surf at Cheviot Beach near Portsea in Victoria and was never seen again. No body, no trace — the Prime Minister of Australia had simply vanished.

The country was bewildered and a little shaken, and the conspiracy theories began almost immediately (was he picked up by a Chinese submarine? It says something about the era that this was asked with a straight face). Before that, 1967 had been significant for another reason: the referendum on Aboriginal citizenship in May passed with a 90 per cent yes vote — one of the highest yes votes for any Australian referendum, and a genuine moment of national conscience.

The Vietnam War and the conscription ballot continued to create deep divisions. The Summer of Love in San Francisco reached Australia in diluted form — you could see it in the new fashions, the longer hair on the boys, the slight loosening of suburban certainty. *Countdown* was still years away but the local pop scene was lively, and the Rolling Stones and Herman's Hermits had both toured recently.

The MCG was packed for the Grand Final. The milk bar owner had a colour television now, turned to the cricket.