Whatever happened to the UNION?

When I was 15 or 16 I joined a local band. We were called 'The Union', named after the union jack. The union jack was associated with mod bands like the Who and the Jam, and we thought ourselves as a similar type of band, singing for the disgruntled working class youth. We were like every other young band, we thought we were the best. We were going to make it. We were young and naive.


I had been playing the guitar for about a year before I joined this band and had become quite good at the guitar for my age. I worked at the local newsagents as a paperboy when I overheard a guy there talking about his band, they wanted a guitarist for a competition they were going in for. It was to play for 'going live' which was a BBC programme for kids in the '80s. It was to be held at the riverside in Newcastle.

I auditioned and got in the band. To be honest we were quite good for our age, the singing was not great, but we were trying. We never got through our heat in the competition, but we got a brief mention on 'going live' somebody took a photo of us, and that was my slice of stardom for the year.
The band continued to go for a few more months, during which time we played at a local youth centre. My friend John (drums) got his mother to film the gig, unfortunately the light was so bad that the video shows nothing the flashing disco lights.

Anyway, years later, I was bored, I was in a crazy reflective mood (I was going through a rough time and wanted a distraction) and I just fancied trying to do a rockumentary / mockumentsry about 'the union' using the footage from the original gig footage Johns mother filmed, and using actual rock documentary footage and trying to blend them together to make my own rockumentary. The result is a total abomination. There is nothing good about it at all for the neutral viewer really, nothing makes sense, it's full of private jokes that no one can relate to, but I kind of like it as it takes me back to the year we made it, and even though it's pathetic, cringy, humiliating and embarrassing, it reminds me of my mate John, and how I got through a rough time by keeping occupied, occupied by filming this piece of shit !!!