THE SKELETON CROSSWORD – £325 in prizes

There is a £100 prize for the first correct solution drawn; nine runners-up receive £25.

Send your completed crossword to the address shown in the box below left. In the skeleton crossword, the black squares and clue numbers have to be filled in as well as the words. Four black squares and four clue numbers have been inserted to give you a start. The black squares form a symmetrical pattern; the top half matches the bottom, and the two sides correspond. You can fill in 12 more squares at once to correspond with those given.

Send to: Skeleton Crossword, PO Box 12578, Sutton Coldfield B73 9BT. The winners will be the first correct entries drawn after the closing date of noon on Friday. Please allow 30 days for prizes to arrive.

ACROSS

1 A cap that oarsmen used

(Hyphenated)

9 Partly empty passageway

within a Scottish town 10 Wrong seer sounded

genuine

11 Sweet prune with ripened

core

13 A wanderer a denial

enraged

15 Partial power lines,

effectively

16 Call centre turned to

frequently (2 words) 18 Locate a wagon going back

east

21 Not entirely sweet-natured

mount

25 Animals not inside cage

disheartened many 26 Gourmet pie ruined with

salt, perhaps

27 So, tasty Thai curry, in other

words (4 words)

DOWN

1 Fool receiving second wind 2 He may back off like

extremists 3 Assertion perhaps true

(Hyphenated)

4 Adrift on the ocean?

(2 words)

5 Minute still vital, and

symbolic seconds

6 Old official about level with

students taken off

7 A different aspect ratio oddly

unsettled a viewer

8 Cockney thieves duck an

overhang (2 words)

12 Maybe breakfast cheers

egghead up

14 Second half of an extinct bird 15 Sadness when ordered

evacuation starts

17 Open softback finished

previously

19 Sauce first added to tripe in

unfinished dish

20 Con beginning to err in

conversation

22 Tent put up around a corner,

in fact

23 Garment acquired around

the middle of May

24 Don’t get mad if leaders

empty safes