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Thank you Karen. I actually got the bridge thing last night but not the 20A one. So that has filled up another half empty space and may help with 14D which at the moment has more empty spaces than filled in ones.

Caravaggio, do you really have to stare long at clues before the penny drops? I thought that was just me - sometimes even days of thought off and on!!

Hi Mondrian,re 14d Londoners during the Blitz would have been used to them! Think of drawing idly followed by small insect, hope that helps

Oh Karen it is so very obvious when one gets the answer. Many thanks yet again. By the way I have more or less stopped sending in. Went to Post office for another supply of 2nd class stamps which I thought were 25p only to discover they are now 32p!! Am I right in thinking that is 6 shillings in old money? Surely not.

Hi Mondrian,you have to think twice about sending in crossword comps. I'll only send in RT when they change the prize to something I'd like!

Mondrian, it's almost six shillings and five pence!

Torvic, What does 6 shillings and 5 pence mean???

Mondrian, not sure whether you have 20A yet - so:
Scarper - think of 2 words: common slang, to run away; another word for companion: with the number "one" placed between the 2 phrases. Hope this helps if you are still looking at 20A, otherwise, ignore!

I can confirm that 6/5 is the pre-decimalisation equivalent of 32p! As a quick guide, if you took the '6' and '5', put them side by side ['65'], and then divided by two, you arrived at the decimal equivalent.

Mondrian, I don't know whether patience is genetic but I seem to have acquired my father's patience and he started me on cryptic crosswords in my early teens. However,
there is a lot to be said for putting the crossword to one side and coming back to it later when, for whatever reason, the answer suddenly becomes apparent.

Nimrod, It means a lot of money when I was a lad!
In case you really don't know, a pound was 20 shillings and a shilling was 12 pence. So 30p was 6 shillings in old money, and 2p was almost 5 pence. If you were winding me up, I fell for it!

torvic: sorry, couldn't resist the wind up!!
I do remember as a lad getting a sixpence for pocket money and being able to buy a Bar Six and a pack of crisps with the blue salt bag in it and still have change. Actually you could also get 4 blackjacks for one old penny.