Stuart Henderson

Growing up I lived at 25 Brecon Close, which is just off Pennine Drive. Dave Cook lived in the same street. So did Nicky Buck, who is a fantastic drummer and played with several punk bands including the likes of Angelic Upstarts and Toy Dolls. Micky Arnell also lived in the next street to ours, so there was a lot of musical talent in our small corner of Peterlee.

The Demented were formed in September 1979, shortly after I left Shotton Hall Comp. The first line-up had Steven Thompson (Stepper) on vocals, Alan Richardson (Ricky) on drums, Dave Cook on guitar, and me on bass. Tragically, Stepper was killed in a motorbike accident before The Demented had played a gig, so I took over vocal duties and we found Tony Camock (Cammy) to take over as our bass player. The band’s first gig was at Horden Youth Club in January 1980. Over the followings months the line up kept changing after every couple of gigs. By the time we changed the name of the band to Uproar in October 1980, the line up included brothers Ian Gordon (Goic) and Barry Gordon (Baz) on drums and bass, with Dave on guitar and me on vocals.

We recorded our first demos at The Whitehouse in 1980. After several knock backs, we eventually signed with Light Beat Records in 1982, by which time we’d played around 40 gigs. They released our first two EP’s ‘Rebel Youth’ and ‘Die For Me’, as well as our first album, ‘And The Lord Said “Let There Be!”’. Goic had left the band and was replaced by Gav by the time we signed to Volume Records and released out third EP ‘Nothing Can Stop You’. Volume Records had in fact wanted us to sign to them for a while and Light Beat didn’t tell us and just held on to us. The relationship with Volume was short lived unfortunately. Shortly after signing with them they had a hit record with another artist and put all their efforts into them, so we backheeled them and went our own way.

Some of the gigs we played back then descended into absolute mayhem. The ‘Best of the North’ gig at Dunelm House in Durham (14th May 1983) kicked off big style with fights between youths from Consett and Stanley. This though was nothing compared with a gig we played at Darlington Arts Centre a few months later. Unbeknown to us, the ‘Darlington Casuals’ had targeted the gig. Darlington had a home game that afternoon, so they were already assembled and ready for what was to follow.

There’s a review of this gig in Sounds where the finger is pointed firmly at me as the catalyst for the mayhem that followed.¹ I’d like to put the record straight about this and give my side of the story. Someone in the audience shouted out “you’re a bag of shite”, to which I replied, “yeah, we’re the bag and you’re the shite”. In retrospect it was a stupid thing to do, but in my defence, I honestly thought it was Tonka in the audience, a mate of mine from Peterlee, who was trying to wind us up as a joke. We were into our encore when the stage was invaded, forcing us off. When we got outside after the gig, the Darlington Casuals were there waiting for us. They gave us a right good beating and we all ended up in Darlington Memorial Hospital before heading back home with broken ribs, and cuts and bruises. In my opinion this all happened simply because we were a band from Peterlee playing a gig on the Darlington Casuals’ turf.

We toured all over Britain and Ireland in this period, as well as Germany where the crowds had us playing two-hour sets. On the second tour of Germany in 1985 we received an invitation to record a single, which because we’d written a lot of new material, then turned into Uproar’s second album (‘Never Forgive’). Our line up by this stage had Woody on bass, with Baz switching to guitar when Dave left the band.

Uproar have kept on going, although with a family to bring up I’ve been working on the bins and driving a refuge truck for the Council since 1989. In 2017 we released ‘No War No More’, a compilation album of our earlier material and off the back of that were invited to tour Australia, which was a great experience. Due to health issues amongst band members as well as having other commitments, Uproar haven’t played live since shortly after lockdown ended in 2021.

This photo was taken some time around 1982/83. It’s the bus stop next to the IBM building (North West Industrial Estate). We were out for a walk one day with Paul Boyes, a mate of ours who was doing a government scheme in photography. We came across this bus stop and thought, why not?!

This photo was used for the front cover of our first single ‘Rebel Youth’. It was taken at Peterlee Youth Centre by Paul Boyes again in around February 1982. This is where the band rehearsed.

¹ “There set was abruptly terminated due to their inability to handle the audience. Inviting hecklers onto the stage to make the band get off was the most stupid thing their vocalist Stu could’ve said and the ensuing fight on stage was, I suppose, inevitable.” Sounds, 15th January 1984.