Lawrence Impey started his photographic career documenting his Dorset school days and the 1970s Bournemouth scene before photographing The Police.
From an unconventional prep school on Purbeck’s Jurassic Coast, to an encounter with punk glamour puss Debbie Harry in a Bournemouth basement, Dorset will forever have a special place in the heart and career of photographer Lawrence Impey.
His work has graced the pages of numerous books and magazines including Mojo, Q, and Rolling Stone and been exhibited in his show Signs of the Seventies in London and Spain; while his photographs of woodland landscapes have been published in Tonewood, a book of poetry by Sue Rose. Lawrence has published three photographic books, the latest The Police:Undercover documenting his four sessions in the late seventies with rock legends The Police. He became the first photographer to work with the then new band on account of his old school pal, drummer Stewart Copeland; the band’s Bournemouth-born guitarist Andy Summers is also a close friend.
‘I photographed them very early in 1977, before Andy was in the band; then was called later that summer after he joined, and for a couple of sessions in Sting's flat,’ Lawrence recalls. ‘The last time was backstage early 1978 at the Locarno in Bristol when they were on tour opening for the American band Spirit.
‘I got the shout because I knew Stewart and his brother Miles. I suppose, like a lot of things in life, it’s all down to a series of accidents. In 1947, my parents met each other across a crowded dance floor in the old Linden Hall Hotel in Boscombe, got married and lived in Bournemouth where I was born.’
The family moved from Bournemouth to Africa when Lawrence was five. ‘My father was a lawyer in Nigeria and had his own practice, sending your children to boarding school back in England was what you did in those days.’
He went to four of them and had mixed experiences. ‘Back then, prep schools were tough places, but Spyway at Langton Matravers was a good one.’ At that time, in the early 1960s, it was owned and run by brothers, Eric and Geoffrey Warner, who Lawrence fondly describes as ‘quite eccentric’.
‘They believed that pencil sharpeners were a new-fangled fad, and we could only sharpen our pencils with a penknife,’ he smiles.
It was at this Dorset prep school that Lawrence, who had been taking photos since the age of eight, honed his skills as a photographer. ‘I had a Brownie Starmite and bought 35mm film because that’s what grown-ups had. I taught myself to use it as I went along.’ And so, he started to document school life at Spyway with his camera. These include a photo of the model railway layout in the attic at Spyway: ‘Only the favourites got to operate that,’ he adds. And a wonderful image of Lawence’s classmates enjoying a dip at Dancing Ledge, the swimming pool that Tom Pellatt, headmaster of nearby Durnford School, had blasted out by quarrymen in 1910. ‘I loved the trips out to Dancing Ledge,’ says Lawrence, as he points to another black and white photo of his classmates walking back to school on Durnford Drove. ‘That track leads from Cowleaze to Durnford Farm and on to Spy Hill to the south. The hill gets its name from the lookout posted by smugglers in the 18th and 19th centuries so the track to Spy Hill became known as Spy Way.’
After leaving school at 17, Lawrence went to live in London, keeping himself financially afloat with a variety of retail jobs until his parents fled the Biafran War in Nigeria and returned to Bournemouth where he joined them. In 1971 he enrolled on a fashion and advertising course at The College of Art and Technology at the Lansdowne.
‘I’ve always been fascinated by photography and the mystery of what makes one photo better than another. I love the immediacy of it, of judging the exposure and the light in the moment, of telling the truth – documentary I suppose. It was about as far from fashion and advertising as it’s possible to get. So, I was on the wrong course really.’
Nevertheless, Lawrence continued to record his immediate surroundings with his camera, a practice that sometimes coincided with the demands of his course.
‘I was never that keen on doing projects the way they were meant to be done,’ he admits. ‘Instead, I used to photograph friends and make them fit the assignment. That was how I photographed my friend Antonio at the Metropole – it was meant to be for a beer advert or something. The photos I took of my friends are just that.
‘Chris and Dee at Dancing Ledge was a trip back to my schooldays. I was a massive fan of Bob Dylan and had managed to get hold of some bootleg tapes that greatly impressed Chris who told me about this guy who knew even more about Dylan than I did - Peter Perrett who was a genius songwriter.’
After graduating from the course, Lawrence was casting around for a source of income and thought he might mastermind Peter’s music career. It was 1976, punk rock was making ripples in the capital and Peter Perrett was plotting his next move, a band that became The Only Ones whose best-known single Another Girl Another Planet came out in 1978. They managed without Lawrence though.
‘I brought Peter and his wife Zena to Bournemouth to meet my parents at their house in Branksome Park. He was always quite shady, and I think they rumbled him so I couldn’t raise the finances from my parents for that business venture.’ Peter quickly lost interest in Lawrence, but through him he met a group of teenagers rehearsing in Lots Road in Chelsea. ‘They turned out to be Squeeze. I thought they were OK. This time I did manage to raise some funds and co-managed them for a year.’
When Squeeze landed the opening support slot on New York new wave band Blondie’s first tour outside the United States, they invited Lawrence to the opening night – a Students' Union bash at the Village Bowl in Bournemouth on 20 May 1977.
‘I had a camera with me of course,’ says Lawrence. ‘I got backstage and asked if I could take some photos. Debbie Harry was jetlagged but happy for me to snap away until my camera broke. Years later I was invited to see Blondie do this small show and met (guitarist) Chris Stein and told him about photographing the band in Bournemouth. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts to show Debbie’s number, the photo he used for her was my picture!’
Another favourite haunt was Armadillo Records in Westbourne, on the corner of Queens Road and Norwich Avenue West, run by Mick Tarrant and Eddie Fisher.
‘Armadillo was a place where incredibly divergent tastes all came together. It had a great atmosphere. It was a veritable mecca for punk rockers, pub rockers, country rockers, pop rockers, prog rockers, soul boys, Teds, mods and everyone in between. I set up my camera and got Mick and Eddie to play around. I met up with Mick quite recently and was sad to hear that Eddie had passed away.’
At the end of the seventies, Lawrence’s career path took a new turn. ‘I literally fell into IT. At the time the first personal computers were just starting to come in and I showed some aptitude for it. Nowadays you’d need a couple of degrees, but things like that could happen then. It became my career although I’ve always taken photographs.’
More at lawrenceimpey.com. For details about his book on The Police visit facebook.com/ThePoliceUndercover for the photo and poetry book visit facebook.com/tonewoodbook
