He was brother to Eliza, Alfred, Charles, Elsie and Gladys and knew Charlie Chaplin in his youth, through his association with the ensemble Eight Lancashire Lads.
Prior to World War I, he was manager to J. W. Jackson who had various troupes of dancers working throughout England, America, Germany and France including the Eight Lancashire Lads in which Chaplin performed.
After a year in Paris he returned to England and appeared at the Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square with various reviews including Eightpence a Mile and Keep Smiling.
The company, which started its processing facility in 1916, was located in Red Lion Square, Holborn, London, but soon moved to 22 Soho Square and had premises in Greek Street, London as well as processing facilities in Finsbury Park, North London.Under his leadership, Kay's went from being a processor of orthochromatic film to a sophisticated processor of colour film.
Roy seems to have bought Nettleford in 1947 and films Archived 2020-10-30 at the Wayback Machine from this period include Tom Brown's Schooldays (1951), Scrooge (1951) with Alastair Sim and The Pickwick Papers (1952).