A LONG-SERVING clergyman has emulated his wife and been made an MBE just months before leaving his job at one of Oxford’s best-known churches.

The Rev Canon Brian Mountford, 70, vicar at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in High Street for the past 30 years, was recognised for services to ecclesiastical heritage.

He said he was “pleasantly surprised” by the honour, which matches the one received by his wife Annette, 66, for her work with Oxford charity Family Links.

Mr Mountford said: “We are going to be a two-MBE family. Whether that adds up to an OBE I don’t know!

In April he will relinquish his duties as vicar and the couple plan to move to Islip.