ABOUT GEOFFREY ENSOR
A Short Biography
Geoffrey Ensor was born in Ealing, London in 1920. His family moved to Ramsgate in Kent when he was two and then to Dover three years later. He had two sisters, Patsy and Noreen. His father was injured in the Dardanelles serving in the Royal Navy in the First World War. He was unfortunately lost at sea during the Second World War while he was a Trinity House Pilot. As a youngster of four, Geoffrey remembered being dragged off to watch county cricket by his father at Canterbury.
GEOFFREY WITH MOTHER, YOUNGER SISTER PATSIE AND FATHER.
He has been an ardent Kent supporter ever since and a longstanding member of the MCC. Geoffrey was a corporal in officer's training corps. He was educated at Dover College and Dover Grammar School, and then went to Kings College London to read medicine. Due to the Second World War he also studied in Glasgow, Birmingham and Epsom. He played cricket as a batsman and right arm legbreak spin bowler at school and university, and then played cricket for Hockerill Cricket Club for a number of years. He took up golf in his thirties and became a demon putter! He was a member of both Bishop’s Stortford and Cannon's Brook Golf Clubs.
GEOFFREY WITH HIS MOTHER: Florence Lizzie.
Geoffrey met Mary Johnson, a recently qualified doctor from Aberdeen just after the War under the Emergency Medical Service. He was appointed Senior Registrar in Eyes, Ears, Nose and Throat in 1945 at Haymeads Hospital in Bishop’s Stortford. They were married in 1947 and had two sons: Christopher and Oliver. The family lived in Warwick Road, Bishop’s Stortford. Geoffrey was appointed Senior Hospital Medical Officer at Chase Farm Hospital, Enfield on a sessional basis in 1950, and he also worked at a number of eye clinics under the National Health Service. Geoffrey isa fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He retired from Chase Farm in 1983, but continued in practice a further 10 years until he was 73 years old. Mary died in 1995 and Geoffrey moved to a bungalow in Cannon’s Close in 1999 where he now lives. Geoffrey and Mary were both keen gardeners. They moved home in Warwick Road to the next house up to get a larger garden. Geoffrey particularly loved propagating plants in the green house and this hobby continues to this day. Hobbies he developed after retirement include calligraphy and painting.
GEOFFREY'S FATHER: Francis Oliver Ensor.
Although his sons both live outside the UK (Christopher in the USA and Oliver in France and Spain), they keep in close contact and visit regularly. Geoffrey also has a number of close friends and he plays bridge on a regular basis.
Geoffrey Ensor the Artist
Two years before he retired completely in 1993, his wife Mary bought him a calligraphy set recognising he might become bored during the winter months without the garden to attend to, cricket to watch and golf to play. This proved a success. Geoffrey attended classes and was encouraged by his teacher. It was but a short step from calligraphy to drawing and painting. Geoffrey attended art classes and he developed a colourful style of depicting landscapes as you will see elsewhere on this website.
‘I don’t really see myself as a painter but I enjoy what I do’ explained Geoffrey. ‘I like to use a lot of colour. I do mainly landscapes. Portraits don’t interest me as an artist, but some of my pictures do have people in them. I am inspired by natural settings, pictures and photographs and then I do my own thing with the subject. My favourite media are pastels and pen and ink wash’.
Geoffrey has been a member of the Bishop’s Stortford Art Club for since 1996. His work has been shown in a number of the club’s shows. He also had his own exhibition of work at the Bishop’s Stortford Library in 2004.