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As usual, after hours of pain, posting for help resulted in immediate realisation. All done and sorry to bother you.

12d and 21a continue to elude me. A gentle hint for either would be welcome.

Vedova, I think 21a is a surname that sounds like the final word. 12d is tricky to gently hint at but is made up of 3 words (2,3,2) with 'o' for old included in them and adds up to the last bit of the clue (which I'd never heard of and usually the last bit I think of as 3 letters but Chambers has the 2 as well).

HTH.

Ah, thank you! A specific rather than a general. No wonder I wasn't getting 21a.

Thank you also for the nudge on 12d. With your help on 21a, I now have 7 out of the 8 letters so I guess there are only 26 possibilities!

So only 1 letter and this would be my first completed solution. I regularly fall at the last hurdle.