[1] Born in Bradford, Yorkshire, he first came to prominence for the philosophical and critical works produced during his close association with the writers Colin Wilson and Bill Hopkins, but has since written prolifically on parapsychology, contacts with extraterrestrial life, sexual love and other topics.
[3] In the same year, Holroyd, Wilson and Hopkins each contributed an essay to Declaration – an anthology of statements by writers and artists then labelled, rightly or wrongly, as Angry Young Men (the contributors included not only John Osborne and Kingsley Amis but Doris Lessing and the director Lindsay Anderson).
[4] On 9 March 1958, Holroyd's play, The Tenth Chance was produced at the Royal Court Theatre;[5] disturbances in the audience during the single performance, and a subsequent confrontation in a nearby public house involving Kenneth Tynan, Christopher Logue and Colin Wilson were widely reported.
[7] Holroyd thereafter turned his attention to different subjects, writing a series of books on the paranormal, parapsychology, encounters with extraterrestrial life, gnosticism and the philosophy of Krishnamurti—work which he later described as "whoring" in the literary market place.
[8] His publication, His Dear Time's Waste (Pronoia Books, 2013) is described as "a 1950s literary and love life memoir", a re-issue of the amended text of Contraries, with substantial additions derived from journals, correspondence and other early writings, together with reflections from a present point of view.