Isn’t it fascinating that such an old, and specific, school slang word has travelled (or traveled, to make Donna feel at home) across the Atlantic?

The one I was thinking of isn’t at all to do with that: it’s CHINK, or CHINCHIES, or something like that. That one’s from the North-East.

I thought I remembered something that sounded like ‘fains’, which is similar to Donna’s word, and was amazed to find it in Chambers: ‘school slang, a plea for exemption or a truce’. I also found this on line:

fainites or fains: dialect – a cry for truce or respite from the rules of a game

[C19: from fains I I decline, from feine feign, from Old French se feindre in the sense: back out, esp of battle]

Thanks for the blog.

Yes, there was a typo in 18ac and I meant to mention it in the blog but forgot. Sadly such typos are not unknown in crosswords from the Observer/Grauniad/Quiptic stable.

Should maybe have mentioned that SANDHURST, in Surrey, is the Army training centre for officers.

And Donna, there is a word from my childhood that meant ‘truce’ when you were playing a game of tig, or such-like. And it’s really annoying me because I can’t for the life of me remember it.

Very entertaining as ever and always there are about 3 or 4 clues that are solving-resistent. I thought that I knew
most places in Scotland but I’d never heard of ANSTRUTHER. I only solved this using Find and Fit.

I particularly liked BOASTS, SETTER (excellent surface), UTAH (very well hidden) and SOMNAMBULIST which was very RUFUS-like.
Thanks Everyman.

Well need to print some off, going to GB National firework competition in the morning, lots of hard work but lots of downtime in between and my dongle has died, might be able to post a comment by phone but online solving is a no no.