Imhofs

Name: MG
Comment: Cor! I'd forgotten about Imhofs. I know I bought Tom Lehrer's 10" LP Songs by Tom Lehrer there in January 1960. I think possibly one or two others, as well, when I had an Christmas holiday job with a silk merchant in Riding House Street, just up the road.

Name: Alan Murphy
Comment: In the mid-sixities we would go down to Imhofs in New Oxford Street and listen to records. You would get a record from the counter and play it in a booth, and then not buy it! Across the street was the Immediate record company, we would go over there and get to meet some of the bands, most famous were probably The Small Faces.

Name: arilmay
Comment: So nice to hear mention of Imhofs Tottenham Court Road. I went to work there in June 1968. I worked in the basement of the Melody Bar. My wage was £7.00 a week plus commission. My first customer requested a recording of Begin the Beguine. I guided him to the ska and blue beat section. My manager Mr Lumby guided me to nostalgia... Not a good start.

Name: Pete Flower
Comment: If ever, in London, I wanted to spend a couple of hours just listening, Imhofs was the place, near Tottenham Court Road station. In their booths with a pile of LPs. No one seemed to mind.

Name: Freda
Comment: A million memories when looking at the Melody Bar photo... One that at about that time in 1969 my brother, Peter Swales, who worked as an assistant to The Rolling Stones brought in a square (I suppose) pizza-style box and showed me an amazing cake which I believe had been collected from Delia Smith. In November I saw it again on the cover of the Let It Bleed album.

Name: Peter Smith
Comment: I remember buying Lonnie Smith's Move Your Hand album from there, when no-one else had heard of it! I also found a copy of John Renbourn's Another Monday album - they were the only place to still have one in stock. I really miss shops like Imhofs.
(9 November 2012)

Name: Martin
Comment: I also worked in the basement of Imhofs. I was there 1970/71. Alf Lumby (the department manager) was a real jazz afficionado and I can remember getting shouted at for taking off his selections and playing stuff like Mothers of Invention!

Also served many celebrities - Elton John came in a couple of times and Cat Stevens was a regular customer.
(5 June 2012)

Name: Mike Comber
Comment: My first job on leaving school was at Imhofs. I worked for the classical record department July 1966 to April 1967 when Miss Fowler was manageress. On my first day I remember the kindness of Mary Marner who took me under her wing and we subsequently had lots of laughs.What a lovely person. All the staff had an encyclopaedic knowledge of their subject, especially George Gimble who seemed to know the catalogue number of just about every record in stock. Real professionals. All the guys in the despatch department were real characters, George Hudson, and especially John Edwards who delighted in Dickens impersonations behind the back of the shop manager Mr. Lester. Happy days. Would love to be in contact with Mary Marner again who made a nervous new recruit feel very much at ease on the first few days.
(14 March 2015)

Name: Paul Vernon
Comment: Talking of ordering deletions, at Imhofs, back in 1970, there was still a copy of the London Carl Perkins Dance Album in stock. I ordered more from Decca in the hopes that there might be some left on the shelf. There was, five copies...

Name: Les Wilkinson.
Comment: I worked in Imhofs' Hi-Fi department in 1974 alongside such characters as Mr Creedy. I still have fond memories as they were all kind, helpful colleagues. Basic salary wasn't great as everything depended on commission but the first couple of months my colleagues passed sales on to me to help me find my feet, a work ethic not so easy to find these days. It was an amazing place to work with surprises every now and then from having to give audio advice to people such as Elton John, Ronnie Corbett, the odd Miss World, life was never dull there.
(15 August 2015)

Name: Janice Brown
Comment: I worked in the classical music department on the ground floor at Imhofs in 1979. I really enjoyed my first few months there as an assistant to George Gimble who was a lovely and knowledgeable gentleman.

Unfortunately, the business was then taken over by another company and we were moved upstairs into a large room with no natural light. Within a very short time, it was decided that we should sell off all the wonderful stock to make room for 'white goods', and it was a very sad day when the record department closed down.
(21 August 2015)

Name: Matthew Wright
Comment: Alf Lumby died some years ago. During the 1950s and 1960s he worked at Dobells Jazz Shop. When I worked for Collets Jazz Shop (later Ray’s Jazz) in the 1970s and 1980s, he would drop by for a chat, do a bit of browsing and occasionally come for a drink round the corner in The Two Brewers. He was immensely knowledgeable and had a huge jazz collection, having started in the 1930s buying Vocalion 78s from Morris’s Record Shop in Tottenham Court Road. He saw the saxophonist Coleman Hawkins with Jack Hylton’s Band, which had Jock Scott (Ronnie Scott’s father) in it, at the Holborn Empire in 1938. During the Second World War, he saw action at El Alamein and played boogie woogie piano in service canteens in Cairo. After the war, he was a member of Club Eleven. He would have been a hundred next January.
(26 May 2017)

Name: Simon Lowman
Comment: I recall that back in the 1960s when I was a teenager, I would go up to London and do the three-stop visit, namely Imhofs, One Stop and Musicland. Imhofs was a real institution for record collectors. I first heard Super Session by Mike Bloomfield/Al Kooper/Steve Stills in one of the listening booths. It was a choice of buying that or Good Vibes by Gary Burton. I bought Super Session and have that original but well-worn copy to this day. It remains one of my favourite albums.
(2018)

Name: Doug Subert
Comment: Yes, Imhofs, where I got turned on to Ray Charles in 1960, after What'd I Say my music world opened up. Can also remember buying Tampa Red and Big Maceo there in the days when the discovery of a new blues record in the shops was an event. It's all too easy now they are everywhere, no thrills left.
(2019)

Name: Jo Botting
Comment: In the film Idol on Parade from 1959, Anthony Newley and Anne Aubrey are seen visiting Imhofs and looking at records. Newley plays a pop star called Jeep Jackson and they pick out his LP from a rack.
(2020)

Name: Dave Wall
Comment: Hi, I worked as a hi-fi service and installation engineer around 1973, based at the Newington Green service centre in Islington, London.
Good times as I recall.
(2020)

Name: Ann Harrison
Comment: I worked in the office on the top floor for a year or more around 1964. A girl who also worked in the office called Rita went downstairs to work in the basement Melody Bar when they were short-staffed and consequently was in there when The Honeycombs group came in. She ended up going out with and marrying one of the lads in the group. I worked down there once and got the autographs of The Dave Clark Five. I still have it somewhere on an Imhofs card I think.

Our office manager if I remember correctly was Mr Parks. A very nice gentleman. We never had computers then just two big comptometer operators . It was a nice firm to work for, especially in the swinging sixties. Happy Days.
(2021)

Name: Simon Watson
Comment: I came to London in December 1959 to start work with a city bank. I was living in the YMCA and found Imhofs to buy my LPs. It was great that you could go into a cubicle and listen to the disc before buying. The remaining store, HMV, is useless for classical music. I am glad that LPs (now called vinyl!) are coming back.
(8 April 2016)

Name: Ronnie K. Marker
Comment: Would anybody be able to verify/clarify if there ever was a gentleman (most likely in Hi-Fi sales) at Imhof in London during 1966-67 by the name of Mr. Marshall ? I ask only because I was told that he sold a pair of vintage Tannoys that I have here with me in Mumbai to their original owner way back in 1967! Will appreciate any light or insights on this.
(22 April 2016)

Name: Gordon Hawtin
Comment: The first job I got when I left school in September 1967 was for Imhofs service department at Mildmay Grove N1, as a trainee hifi engineer. The service manager was Brian Mead? I didn't last long as someone told me to plug in some expensive Wharfedale speakers and I plugged them into a mains block and blew the pair up.
(2021)