THOSE who never experienced the vibrant yet turbulent climate of the mid-1960s would do well to observe the striking photography of Graham Keen.

His upcoming gallery showing in St. Leonard’s-on-Sea is a panoramic sweep of London’s social scene in 1966, from the Indica Gallery and Bookshop in which Yoko Ono had her first British exhibition and Paul McCartney helped to put up shelves, to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and anti-Vietnam War public marches.

“The atmosphere at the time was one of real apprehension about what was going to happen,” Keen reflects. “The cold war was really tangible.”

At the same time, the street protests – of which music stars Marc Bolan (T-Rex), Joan Baez and actress Vanessa Redgrave were often a part – brought about an air of connectivity among the public, says the photographer, whose pictures were used in most of the daily national newspapers.

Keen worked freelance for Peace News for many years and was part of a peace-seeking group that travelled to Cambodia as a stepping stone to North Vietnam, to offer solidarity to the Vietcong. It didn’t quite work out this way, though, as the group were denied entry to Vietnam.

If this was frustrating, what Keen and company weren’t prepared for was the Tet Offensive, the attacks on over 100 cities by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces on New Year’s Eve, 1968.

“Guns were going off, bombs were going off. We were on the Vietnam border, only 35 miles from Saigon. It was an almighty effort for them to take over that many cities in one night, including Saigon and the airport.

“We had to take shelter from a helicopter gunship – it killed a cow and set the next field on fire as we lay in a ditch”

Closer to home, bands such as The Rolling Stones and The Kinks were performing regularly on music television programmes like Ready Steady Go and Top of the Pops. Keen was there to snap them in action, although he says he was “never terribly interested in rock and roll. I was a jazz fan through and through.”

While Keen was “probably too shy” to approach the musicians he was photographing, he had a friendship with Brian Jones, the founding member of The Rolling Stones who tragically died at the age of 27.

“At Cheltenham Grammar School we started a jazz band in the sixth form with me on the drums,” says Keen. “Brian was at school with us and he used to come and sit in on our practices playing the guitar; he was deeply into the blues. He always rushing home at 9pm, though, because his mother would be cross if he was out late.”

It wouldn’t be the last time Keen would be in the midst of the stars. Having initially been inspired to be a photographer by activist John Hopkins, who was taking pictures for The Sunday Times, Keen soon found himself being sent to shoot a new exhibition by a “fringe artist” at the Indica Gallery – Yoko Ono.

“She was married to a film producer called Anthony Cox back then. I took lots of pictures of Yoko but I don’t think any of them were used by the daily papers because at that point nobody knew who she was. It was at the gallery that she met John, actually.”

Ono wouldn’t remain an unknown for much longer. Keen remembers sitting in a cafe and seeing John Lennon and Ono stroll past. “Yoko waved to me, and I waved back, and then John did the same. I turned around and the whole cafe behind us were looking at me like I was an alien creature.”

Keen also made the acquaintance of the enigmatic American author William S Burroughs, who edited the comic paper Cyclops that Burroughs wrote for.

“Bill was great, very accessible. Would go anywhere, do anything, for a bit of money,” keen laughs. “He also had an incredible capacity to get through a bottle of vodka over supper.”

The photographer talks fondly about his time as art editor for International Times; “one of the best times of my life.”

It wasn’t all happy days, though, as he recalls a controversial issue he and other staff members were embroiled in.

“When the Homosexual Law Reform Bill became law in 1967, we decided that we would run homosexual ads in our Lonely Hearts column. We blithely went on printing these ads assuming that the age of consent for homosexuals was the same as for heterosexuals. 16 was the heterosexual age of consent, but for homosexuals it was 21.

“We were charged with Conspiracy to Corrupt Public Morals and spent ten days at the Old Bailey. I don’t want to experience anything like it ever again. We were found guilty and sentenced to 18 months in jail. It was a suspended sentence, though. We were earning 25 quid a week and they fined us 2000 quid. I left London pretty soon afterwards – I think I was probably having a nervous breakdown.”

In 1981 Keen went to work for Time Out magazine and spent 20 years in the art department until his retirement in 2001.

Now settled in Battle, Keen says he still takes pictures, mostly of his wife, dog, clouds and the Sussex landscape. As a social documentarian of a fascinating time, his legacy and work lives on.

Lucy Bell Gallery, Norman Road, St. Leonards-On-Sea, East Sussex, Saturday, September 3, to Saturday, October 22, 01424 434828