Vicars are seen as being busy people who are always on duty, but what does a clergyman do in his spare time? Forty six-year-old Ian Parkinson is the vicar at All Saints Church in Marple.
Ian says, "When most people discover what my job is they say 'you don't look like a Vicar.' I don't know what people expect us to look like. Or they say 'Aren't you a bit young to be a Vicar!'"
Ian studied to be a lawyer but never practiced. "It was while I was at University that I had a strong sense of God's call to do something else."
Ian says that he does manage to get a day off every week. "If you are a Christian you don't get a day off from God because your whole life is lived with him, but my work is my work, so I need time to charge my batteries and be with my family and friends."
At one time Ian played in a New Orleans jazz band when he lived in the North East, but so far he hasn't find a local band in need of his talents as a pianist.
"I used to play cricket and at one point I was captain of the National Clergy eleven, the the knees don't work as well as they used to do, so I garden rather than play cricket."
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