Back in the ’60s I remember religious instruction being replaced with religious education presumably to reflect the changing times and greater awareness of the diversified religions present in the UK at that time.

To ‘instruct’ has overtones of directing the recipient down a specific path whereas to ‘educate’ gives scope to cover a wide range of associated topics.

At my school, Religious Ed and Scripture were interchangeably one and the same thing (admittedly it was dependent on the vintage of the teacher conducting the class, so maybe it was already something of an anachronism back in the 80s?).

Incidentally, I seem to recall Domestic Science lessons re-branding to become Home Economics at around the same time. I guess every generation needs its own euphemisms…

27a Thank you, your interpretation of the wordplay makes more sense than mine.

1a I don’t think so. ‘Scripture’ is defined as “the sacred writings of a religion” or, rarely, “a biblical text”. RE is the abbreviation for ‘religious education’ which is the teaching of religious doctrines in schools.

As there is no verbal form of ’scripture’ (you can’t ‘to scripture someone’), RE must be extended to include a religious education class, i.e. a gathering of people being taught RE or, somewhat loosely, a ’scripture meeting’.

With an initial capital, Scripture is also defined as “the Bible” so the common term ‘Bible class’ would equate to ‘Scripture meeting’

Only my opinion of course.

Re 27A I have: “A tool basically” giving the A+L (i.e. the base, or final letter, of “tool”).

Re 1A, isn’t your allegation of “meeting” doing double duty a little harsh?

I have been doing cryptic crosswords for the last 45 years (with a few breaks) and the TD abbreviation has cropped up more than once during that time. I will admit to having to refer to Chambers to get the correct spelling.