His fine points were many. I can recall no bad ones. We lived in the same road, played the banjo, so we were bound to meet. We became firm friends, joined the York club and realised immediately we had only played at playing our instruments. After visiting me one day, he inadvertently left behind a finger-style solo: Joe Morley's "Gold Diggers." We attempted the piece as a duet and straightaway put our plectrums away. Thereafter, we spent countless hours practising solos of all grades. He later suggested the title to "Ridings March" during a late night twenty-mile drive home from our weekly club meetings.
He was a keen golfer and much travelled. Educated at Taunton, he later went to Australia. At one time he was "boundary riding" in the bush where, being without a banjo, he made one from an old food can, dried rabbit skin and some steel wire. Despite this, he still loved the banjo. He returned to England and, until his death, was a Farms Safety Officer with the Ministry of Agriculture.
Cyril Bellamy did not love his neighbour as himself—he loved him more. He saw and brought out the best in everybody. Content to play "second banjo" in duets, he was happiest in full-ensemble playing when other people were enjoying themselves—and the Yorkies know how to do this. Some time ago, he tried to persuade the Northern Federation Committee to hold its Rally in Harrogate. Though unsuccessful it pleased him to know the venue chosen this year was farther North.
His ambition was to hear a hundred banjos performing on the concert platform. He never did but, if stringed music still belongs to heaven, there will be no more appreciative listener than Cyril Douglas Bellamy.
—KEN JAMES.