A TEST Valley restaurant has proved chivalry isn’t dead after accepting a 30-year-old raffle prize by a couple on their 40th wedding anniversary.

Keats, in Ampfield, honoured the £20 ‘meal for two’ voucher which was won by Romsey town councillor John Parker at a raffle by children’s charity Naomi House and Jacksplace in 1987.

Formally the mayor of Romsey, Cllr Parker and his wife Tessa had their wedding reception at the ‘Old Thatches’ restaurant in 1977 – this would become Keats in ten years’ time.

In April this year, John was going through some drawers and re-discovered the voucher. Meanwhile, purely coincidentally, his daughter Harriet decided to book a surprise lunch for her parents at Keats as a present to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.

“I thought I would take it along and try my luck,” admitted John.

“If they accepted it, fine, if not then we could just have a laugh about it!”

He added: “The problem was, the voucher was for Lunch Tuesday to Saturday, but I was working weekdays in London.

“So, I put the voucher safely away and then completely forgot about it.”

However, John added that although the voucher would have paid for two meals when it was first issued, it barely dented their anniversary dinner.

“Prices have probably doubled since then, I’d have thought,” he added.

“Nevertheless, the food was absolutely gorgeous, and service was brilliant and very friendly.

“We had little baked pancakes with spinach, ham and cream filling which were called Crespelle alla Keats, followed by Gurnard with lots of lovely veg and Tiramisu for dessert”.

Owner and chef Martin Aslin came out of the kitchen to introduce himself and take a look at the voucher.

He said: “It was great to meet John and Tessa, I thought it was a lovely link to the heritage of the restaurant, and it would only be right to honour the voucher.

“We all shared a laugh about it.”