ACCORDING to the Bible, Saint Paul had his epiphany on the road to Damascus and decided it was time to convert the Roman Empire to Christianity. Thus the history of the western world was re-written.

Sadly, few ordinary folk are saints, and very few have defining moments which change lives totally and utterly in a matter of seconds, but one did happen a few years since, not in the Middle East, but in the lovely square at Grassington.

Into it walked a well-established, well paid and well respected professional man whose life seemed fully mapped out. But, to put it in his own words: "When I saw that square, my mouth literally dropped open. I knew I had to live there, no matter what the cost, no matter how much upset it caused."

And that is how Dr Andrew Jackson, one of the most singular characters among the scores this column has featured, came to Craven.

It all happened by accident - a fortunate accident, most of the residents of Grassington and Threshfield would admit - because on that summer's day 17 years ago, Andrew was in the wrong place: on the banks of the Wharfe rather than the Swale.

"I had never been to Yorkshire before and we had booked a holiday cottage in Swaledale," he recalls. "But that was flooded out so the organisers offered us an alternative in Burnsall.

"We had come to Grassington shopping and the beauty of the square hit me like a hammer blow. I knew in a split second that this was the place where I just had to spend the rest of my life."

This was not easy. Coming from a long-standing family of GPs, he was a partner in the family practice in Pershore, Worcestershire, and had by his late thirties established a prosperous, if rather dull, existence.

"Being a doctor in a small country town can be considered a very pleasant way of life," he told me. "But it can also be rather dull. I was expected to be in the gin and tonic set and talk about my newest BMW or Volvo Estate.

"I am many other things as well as being a doctor. I wanted to burst away and do other things as well as practice medicine. On that very first day, I just knew that Grassington was the place to do it."

By good fortune, the district's other doctor, Ian Kinnish, was looking for a partner - a part-time partner for he was still building the practice. Although this meant a huge drop in salary, and becoming a humble junior GP again, Andrew jumped at the opportunity. But even this was something that should never have happened but for the fickle hand of fate.

Andrew, you see, never wanted to be a doctor - "I didn't want to join the family trade because, apart from anything, I couldn't stand the sight of blood. I did everything I could to wangle my way out of it."

That included studying marine biology at university and even becoming an actor for a few years, which established his love of the theatre. Then fate stuck what, at the time, seemed a terrible blow.

He was a passenger in a car which collided with a lorry on the then notorious Shap road in Cumbria. He suffered injuries to his legs, arms and hands so bad that he spent the next 18 months in a series of hospitals whilst surgeons virtually rebuilt parts of his body.

"There is no place better to read serious books than in a hospital bed," he says, without the slightest trace of regret. "I began to read medical books - there were a lot of them about - and, of course, I had plenty of time to study the hospital routine.

"Finally, I ended up working with a blind physiotherapist who told me: 'You would make a fine doctor.' What could I do? I had spent years of my youth trying to dodge medicine and it took a blind man to make me see the error of my ways. When I was fit, I took myself off to medical college in Birmingham."

So, eventually, he ended up in Grassington but, as he had told me earlier, he wanted to do other things as well as practice his profession. And he has achieved that ambition in spades.

He helped launch the local theatre group, wrote plays, with his partner in crime Ian Patrick founded and appears in the Grassington panto and was instrumental in getting the Millennium Lottery Fund to pay for the huge and much used extension behind the town hall.

All of this is done, not just with a smile but with a joke, for he has a quirkish sense of humour, not usually associated with men of his profession. Some years ago, as an April Fool's wheeze, he and Ian Patrick announced that planning permission had been granted for the building of a lifeboat station on the banks of the Wharfe at Threshfield.

When the Herald got wind of the scheme, he was photographed with Ian, in false beards and nautical gear, by - wait for it - the duck pond at Rylstone!

That prank rebounded in the best possible way, because the Threshfield lifeboat now has an annual function - and a few weeks ago raised £1,200 for the RNLI.

I could go on and on - but don't have the space. Dr Andrew Jackson, general practitioner, amateur thespian, jester and all round good egg is a one-off. Fate brought him to Craven - and both have shared the benefit.