Though best known for vocally championing the cause of Yorkshire, Colin Holt was also a dedicated member of Moss and District Parish Council and a vintage vehicle enthusiast.

Holt had an aptitude for generating publicity that he would use throughout his tenure at the Yorkshire Ridings Society.

[1] After BT was privatised, the company agreed to make the address read "Yorkshire" and the Holts had their telephone connection back.

His message was simple and constant: that the sidelining of Yorkshire's ancient North, West and East Ridings, which dated to the ninth century, under local government re-organisation in 1974 was a crime and an insult.

He began the tradition, still continued, for members of the YRS, with white roses in their buttonholes, to make a circuit of the ancient city walls of York, reading out a "Yorkshire Declaration of Integrity".