A WELL known and respected businessman, entertainer and football fanatic from County Durham has passed away.

Keith Belton died on September 18 after a long illness, aged 82.

Mr Belton was chairman of the Durham Amateur Football Trust, frontman of the Tees Valley Jazzmen, a lifelong Bishop Auckland fan and a passionate champion for his home village Witton Park.

He leaves a partner, Sheila, and two sons.

Friend and former Northern Echo journalist Mike Amos said: “The same quietly relentless enthusiasm touched everything to which he turned his hand. Though ever-amiable, he wasn’t a man who’d easily take “No” for an answer.”

Founded with his late brother Gavin, the Tees Valley Jazzmen made their debut in 1970 at the Hardwick Hall Hotel in Sedgefield and went on to play on four continents and across Britain.

“There are nights when you don’t feel like turning out,” Mr Belton once said.

“But when the band’s playing and the room’s with you, there’s nothing like it in the world.”

When he was young, Mr Belton played accordion around the local chapels and Women’s Institutes, joined a skiffle group and, while at King James I Grammar School in Bishop Auckland, he discovered jazz – a lifelong love affair.

He had also been part of The Beltones singing group.

Though he had moved to Norton, near Stockton, and ran a property business, his heart never left the village of Witton Park.

In 2002, with his cousin Ken Biggs and Dale Daniel, he co-wrote Forever Paradise, a 140-page village history.

Mr Daniel said Ken was the technical expert, Keith the historian and himself the historian’s labourer.

“Nothing was too big for Keith,” he said.

“He’d always go for it and worry about the consequences later.”

Dick Longstaff, secretary of DAFT which was founded in 2006, said: “It was his idea from the start.

“He was very enthusiastic and always having ideas about this and that. His contribution was the backbone of the Trust throughout and he’ll be greatly missed.”

The Trust is moving into a new base in the lodge of Mr Belton's old school in Bishop Auckland, where the first exhibition since lockdown will be staged on Saturday October 2.

“It will be a very poignant occasion,” said Mr Longstaff.

 

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