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Well. This has taken me 2 days to almost finish. I needed a great deal of help from this forum and needed Google to help with the themed answers as I am not familiar with the theme at all.

I can’t get “they support retirees”. A hint would be welcome. This is the only answer left to put in the grid

I also can’t parse “Grandma with new canine…” which I see others couldn’t also

Sally Mac. The theme is split 4 and 5 in the grid. That threw me for a while

And I have now got my missing answer due to a mistake in entering the down word.

What a struggle, but a real sense of achievement

Yes, a real struggle. Took me all of Sunday to complete. Even after getting the theme, and filling in all the letters around the ring, quite a few other clues also require help from Google.

Thanks Lunaticfridge, that does help.

Wow!
Many thanks Maskerade, a proper Bank Holiday special, and it's been fun reading through the forum and watching persistence being rewarded. I think this was well worth sticking with, even though I have still for unsolved)
There is very precise and compact clueing, and careful reading of the instructions is needed as well as use of Wikipedia: I recognised the theme and knew some of the themed answers, but most needed research.
( It's not called 'Alphabetical Jigsaw' so the 'every letter' rule does not apply; it doesn't say the parts are in order round the perimeter so; the bottom right-hand square is the right-hand end of the bottom, not the bottom of the right etc).

My way to start filling the grid was to spot that two of the 3-letter answers were hidden in the theme parts, then play with three order to put those parts in the corresponding places.

Like another poster, I cannot parse the second half of 'Grandma...'. I'm also stuck on 'Joined up threateningly...', 'Historian lost deposit...', 'In English wood...' and 'Chap with mum's dog', despite knowing all the initial letters and almost all crossers. Tbh I haven't tried solvers on these so I might get some more, but a couple of hints would be appreciated.

‘Joined up threateningly’ is the definition. Then a river with the last letter taken off + deserted (d)

luko - without giving away too much (though I suspect most of those solving are there by now ...) - I take the second half of grandma to be an anagram of with + a single letter for canine. Joined up ... is an Indian river unfinished + .. English wood is single letter for English, then a common wood surrounding usual abbreviation for church - definition camp in the theatrical sense. For the historian you need to take a word for deposit (as a verb) from a famous Victorian historian. The dog is a four-letter word for a man followed by a four-letter word for not speaking.

Luko. Historian lost deposit. The definition is ‘a gambling paradise’. Name of a historian then take away the ‘deposit’.

Hi all - I've been a long-time on the side-lines but a first time poster; Luko - Grandma = Nan + anagram of 'with' hiding first of canine. I haven't finished this yet but having fun trying. I was brought up on Araucaria and thoroughly enjoying this offering.