It wasn't a dish you'd find in vegetarian Bev Dixon's Bar Brookie, which is why fellow TV soap actor Kenneth Cope probably plum- ped for it, writes Phil Clee.

Steaming steak and kidney pie, chips and peas, and lashings of onion gravy to go with it - lovely!

If it was hardly the tastebud tempter you'd expect a former restaurateur to choose when offered a free lunch, as far as Ken was concerned, it hit the spot and he couldn't praise it enough.

Ken, who now stars in the Channel 4 Scouse soap Brookside as the unfortunate dog-killer Ray Hilton - well he should have looked out for the poor dog before reversing his car, shouldn't he? - was happy to take up our offer of a quick bite to see whether food critic Egon Ronay had got it right about motorway nosh. Mr Ronay, who has caused food-providers to tremble for the past 40 years, has launched a scathing attack on the "scandalous" quality of meals and drinks available at many of Britain's 72 motorway service areas.

He cites coffee tasting of washing-up water, tough bacon, disgusting fried eggs and ridiculous chips.

But the "mass-produced, unspeakable rubbish" he and a colleague encountered on a tour of the motorway network, was not the reaction registered by Ken and his wife, Renny, who live at Eynsham, when invited to take a 'Welcome Break' at the Oxford M40 services of the same name near Wheatley.

Like all modern services, the Oxford stop offers a choice of food through well-known franchises, and Ken's pie and chips, costing 6.25, was bought from friendly staff at The Granary counter.

A pot of tea, served with a mug rather than a cup - which also found favour - cost 1.50. Ken, an early Coronation Street star, who played Jed Stone, and the original Marty Hopkirk 'ghost' of the recently revived 1960s cult series Randall and Hopkirk Deceased, excused his apparent lack of appetite on his dietary need to eat lightly during the day.

But he plunged his fork into the pie and declared it most enjoyable, as did Renny when offered to sample a morsel or two.

"This really is quite palatable," he said. "The chips are good and not thin things like you get in McDonalds, and the peas are a bit cannonbally, but I like them like that, rather than soft and mushy.

"The aftertaste is really excellent, which may be the consistency or the gravy.

"It's just the sort of thing if you're on a long journey and you need a quick fix.

"It's all meat in there and no gristle which is what you sometimes find.

"On a score out of ten, I'd give it a nine." Former actress Renny, mother of their three grown-up children, and now a grandmother four times over, agreed with Ken's verdict.

"You can taste the kidney in it and it's quite good," she said, but was less than complimentary about her quiche lorraine and salad bought from La Brioche Doree next door for 3.95. Perhaps put off by the less than shiny cutlery - "it's probably the dishwasher to blame" - Renny rated the quiche filling and pastry base, but thought the coleslaw salad bland and unremarkable.

The cappuccino, too, failed to tantalise for its asking price of 1.55, and even when pressed, Renny could manage only six out of ten for her light snack.

However, She praised the light and airy eating area with its acres of glass and tumbling fountains outside.

Ken said: "It's very restful and and almost continental.

"Someone has made an effort and I feel very relaxed.

"Being a cheapskate, I think I'll bring the wife back here on our anniversary!" he quipped.

Story date: Wednesday 12 April

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