Son of a Preacher man..
My Dad is a vicar, which is great as it makes me the son of a preacher man, but that is not the point. My dad, as he often says, is not religious. Not really. I think he does it as a social adhesive to the locals rather than because of any great calling, and hates people knowing he's a vicar if he's outside his stomping ground, but again that's not the point.

My dad makes stuff up. In trying to get his village some more tourists to boost the local economy, he invented the legend of how it became. The problem is, being a vicar, people believed him to the point that this story is now acknowledged as fact. It gets printed in regional tourist guides and will probably become common knowledge before too long. He has been featured on Countryfile (best claim to fame ever!) when they covered his church and made stuff up about pagans to create conflict, to which my dad, when asked about it told Sue Perkins to shut up and laughed at her as they made it up.
He regularly takes old people on religious tours, and if he gets bored invents a miracle that happened in whatever field they are driving past. The old ladies are constantly amazed at how clever he is and how much he knows.

That said though, he holds that village together, will listen to the most hopeless of cases and spends every day of the week helping people out.

Not enough? He, and because of him his village also features in a German 'Midsummer Murders' type thing, and a Canadian is also writing some sort of whodunnit novel based on him, so all in all I think he's pretty cool. He can't dance for toffee though, and had me read Winnie the Pooh at his wedding, so it all balances out...
( Jimbuktu See? Right here, Thu 25 Nov 2010, 21:01, 3 replies)

I think I like your dad. :)
(The Ghost of Stephen Foster, Thu 25 Nov 2010, 21:20, closed)

Care to share the story about the town?
(Avnas dosh!, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 3:20, closed)

Sure
So, there used to be a well where the village is now where a young woman was caught praying. This was not allowed as she came from the village over the river and praying was discouraged so she was thrown down the well and left to die. A week later some fishermen returned to the well to check on the body only to witness her die and the spirit of the girl ascend into the sky. Struck by this miracle a church was founded and the village followed...

As an aside, my dad was dragged to the church a couple of years ago by a parishoner who had witnessed a miracle in the churchyard; a plum tree was growing plums AND apples from the same branch! Hallelujah! My dad, slightly irritated pointed out the apple tree the other side of the path and showed her where the boughs were crossing. You get all sorts...
( Jimbuktu See? Right here, Fri 26 Nov 2010, 21:49, closed)