Member of the Inner Magic Circle with a Gold Star since 1975

Geoff's earliest recollection was seeing a magician performing at the Gay Meadow in July 1935. He was just three years, eleven months old, as confirmed by checking the date with the local paper, the Wellington Journal, made easier by the fact that his sister also won the baby competition, she was born in 1934. His brothers, Philip and John, also remember the magician. His stage name, he found out through Dr. Eddie Dawes, was Dan Leano from Wrexham. The three tricks he remembers him doing were Aerial fishing, razor blades from the mouth, and a break away vanish with two doves. This started his life-long interest in magic.

Geoff and his wife Pat, began by performing in Charity shows for eight years. This provided the opportunity to practice their first competition act with which they won £30 for winning at Bloxwich Memorial club after three heats! In1957.Some time later, they won the Midlands club speciality act of the year which they went on to win three times. Following this, they performed at one of the first Blackpool conventions, then in Horseshoe bar theatre, together with Robert Harbin and John Calvert. They were to later appear in a number of others.

In 1963, Geoff and his wife Pat, were to win first prize of £1000 in the National Butlins/People competition which started out with 6000 acts! In the same year, he won the British Ring prize for originality and was to go on to win the Manipulation prize three times. In 1964, they appeared at FISM with a new act featuring coins and bottles and ending with a poodle production. In the same year, he and his wife came second on TV's Opportunity Knocks.

The following year, 1965, Geoff started his dove and cards act on a uni-cycle, which was inspired after seeing Rudy Horn perform at the Blackpool Tower circus, juggling on a uni-cycle and catching cups on his head. Thinking that no-one had ever done magic on a uni-cycle, he sent for one that was advertised in the stage, it came by parcel post. He had never handled one before and, on his first trial, he was convinced that there was something wrong with it or that they had forgotten to include something that allowed you to balance. He discovered that with a uni-cycle you are effectively falling all the time which was contrary to his idea that it would be a simple matter to keep reasonably still with a spot light on his upper body doing the manipulations and producing doves. Not to be deterred, he spent three months constantly practicing until he could stay on it. It was still far too unstable and it took a further nine months to be able to stay in a 12 inch square and further twelve months before he could perform his act on it. He used to cycle up and down the footpath in the dark, bidding passers-by goodnight as he wobbled past them. After much perseverance, he finally mastered the act he had imagined some years earlier and performed it at the Pavilion Theatre in Llandudno.

A number of TV appearances followed including Carol Levis discoveries, Robinson Cleaver’s Stars, Nationwide, Club cards, HTV , Blue Peter, Zokko 3 times and the Ken Dodd show where he performed judo as Ken sang a love song. The BBC even came to his house with three large vans to film a gambling shot. Geoff also performed on HTV where he did magic of the hands, for three months linking programmes every day. In 1975, they did the Magic circle show at the Collegate in London on the same bill as Fred Kaps and Jay Marshall, and after the first night, the Evening Standard said Geoff Ray & Pat should have been top of the bill due to his truly magical dove productions.

Geoff started doing close up magic when he was working the clubs. This brought him extra work, but he was stopped from doing card tricks in Gambling clubs. Close-up magic was not so popular in those times being known as pocket tricks. Geoff was therefore, one of the first close-up magicians in the country performing in night clubs, like the Steering Wheel, West Bromwich, Castaways Birmingham, Monte Carlo Handsworth and a variety of venues in Manchester, Stoke, Leicester, Coventry anywhere in fact within an 80 mile or so radius, of Shrewsbury.

He has worked all of the rooms at the Magic Castle and was there for three whole months in 1978 where he followed Mike Skinner in the Close-up room. He did 42 shows a week there, now they have early and late magicians, Mike Skinner did a different show each time!!. One of Geoff's proudest moments was lecturing at the Magic Castle with Dai Vernon, Kuda Bux and Billy McComb in the audience.

Geoff and Pat’s stage name on ships was Kordan and Patricia, they cruised for 15 years on most of the largest ships. Over 100 cruises, on P&O, Royal Viking, Ulysses, Fred Olsen, and the Navarino lines, this included six world cruises for P&O. They had to do 6 entirely different acts on world cruises, which amounts to a lot of magic. Each act has to be the same quality, because passengers might only get to see one of them. He used to perform two different acts around the clubs so he had to devise an additional third act for his first cruise. Alan Shaxon had recommended them to his agent when Robert Harbin died, and they did Robert Harbin’s summer season on board the Calypso. Their agent was Albert Saveen, a very well known ventriloquist act with a ‘talking dog’. For four of the years they cruised, with the Black and White Minstrels, up and down the coast of South America, around the Caribbean, Mediterranean, Baltic and North Cape..

He is a Past President of the British Ring of the International Brotherhood of Magicians for who he has performed in many of their shows and won all of its major prizes. In 1970, he became the first magician in its history to have won two top awards for Stage Magic and Close-up Magic in the same year, a feat that has never been equalled.

He appeared at the Europa Festival of Magic in Baden Baden in 1975 in two Gala shows using different acts. As well as many lectures in the UK, Geoff has lectured and performed in Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Los Angeles and Philadelphia. He appeared in Pantomime at Dudley Hippodrome 1962 for ten weeks, and appeared at most theatres around the country. He has even performed on the stage of the London Palladium.

He and his wife were Magic dealers for several years in the 70's selling tricks that Geoff had invented. His main one, and best seller was a Kung-fu trick where a signed card appeared nailed to a block of oak with a six inch nail. Tannens ripped it off and featured it without credit in their catalogue where it sold out three times. Hans Morrete, Frank Garcia and Paul Daniels were among those who bought one. Other originations were X-Ray Miracle, Spherical Transportation, Colour Changing Cards, Colour Changing Pack, Zombie Gimmick, and Diamond Smuggler. His articles have appeared in Abra, and Pabular, and in 1962 made coin jewellery which was ripped off by non-magicians.

He is a founder member and now Life President of the Shropshire Magical Society.

Now semi-retired, he still performs many close-up shows, often with his son Paul who is also a successful magician performing both close-up and comedy magic stand-up, with which he won the British Ring Comedy award in 1986. Still going strong, in 2004, Geoff performed at the famous FFFF Convention in the USA, which is an Internationally acclaimed invitation only event attended only by the World's top magicians.

Some of his achievements in brief:

First prize Butlins/People (6000 acts) 1963
First prize British Originality Trophy 1963
First prize British Manipulation Shield 1964/67/70
First prize British Close-up Magic Trophy 1970
First prize British Shield 1970

Geoff still spends some time at the family furniture business, ‘Rushworths Furniture’, where they employ cabinet makers and polishers to make 'made to measure furniture' and retail. They have also made both furniture and illusions for the Paul Daniels TV shows, the play Scrooge and for Paul himself. Also they have made four King Water Rat Chairs, and re-furbished, the original ones at the Water Rats Head quarters in Grays End Road in London.