Christopher James Holyoak was born in Hackney, East London in 1962. He grew up on a diet of Jack Kirby comics, Ray Harryhausen movies, Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes, and other such things that are likely to warp a young mind.
He spent his working life in London but in his thirties became a compulsive traveller, a pursuit that became an obsession for a while. Splitting the years between working and travelling, his journeys took him from Argentina to Zimbabwe. He loves the mountains and their associated sports and, until recently, lived for half the year in the Haute-Savoie region of France.
An amateur musician, he plays the guitar and is currently trying to teach himself piano (with mixed success). He also has an interest in languages, both modern and ‘dead’, and is insanely envious of all those rather smug polyglots with their own YouTube channels.
He loves reading biographies, philosophy, comparative religions and history books; his favourite periods at the moment being Anglo Saxon England and the Regency/Victorian/Edwardian era. Having a lifelong interest in the fighting arts, his library now has growing collection of books on the Western martial arts tradition.
He is a ‘homeless’ Christian and Traditionalist, having an interest in mysticism, mythology, Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, as well as a purely academic interest in occult matters such as Hermeticism. His dream is for a new Saxon Anglicanism, blending folk tradition with the central mystery of Christianity.
His fiction reading tastes are considered a little dated by most, his favourite authors being, amongst others: H. Rider Haggard, JRR Tolkien, Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs and HP Lovecraft; all of which are being read, of course, whilst enjoying a glass of real ale or bourbon and a full pipe of Ashton’s Artisans Blend.
A Spenglerian (of sorts) having grown convinced that the world has gone quite mad, he now lives in the hills of rural Shropshire with his wife, Nicola, and his dog, Django (named in honour of his favourite jazz guitarist).
