He took the same unfussiness with him to the Navy. At Easter 2001 the sea was so rough off Newfoundland that he celebrated the Eucharist lying down on the deck, and threw up after the Collect. He described another service off Iraq, with Iranian gunfire in the background, as having been “a challenge”.
An ardent Europhile, Gough also spent time at the Anglican chaplaincy at Milan, where he enjoyed entertaining friends from home. He regarded Brexit as a disaster and his politics were old Welsh Labour. He would have been tickled pink at the thought of an obituary in The Daily Telegraph.
An accomplished mimic, he had an enormous sense of mischief and enjoyed sending himself up. Driving himself back to St Stephen’s House to visit an ex-serviceman whose vocation he had encouraged, on arrival he stuck a two-star pennant on to his windscreen in the college car park so that his host would know that he had arrived.
There was joyful unpredictability, too. Walking through New York with a friend, he turned abruptly into the foyer of a grand hotel, strode into the glass elevator and promptly rode up to the top. After surveying the view he pressed the button and returned to the bottom. He was about to do it again when the doorman appeared and marched them both firmly to the exit.
Gough was diagnosed with cancer in late 2022; he crossed the bar a few months later. He is survived by his wife, Amanda, whom he married in 2004, and their children.
The Venerable Martyn Gough, born April 21 1966, died April 28 2023