Academician raised in fenland city in distant past (5)
I believe the answer is:
early
'distant past' is the definition.
'early' can be an answer for 'past' (thesaurus). I am not certain of the 'distant' bit.
'academician raised in fenland city' is the wordplay.
'academician' becomes 'RA' (member of the Royal Academy of Arts).
'raised' shows that the letters should be reversed in order (going up in a down clue).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'fenland city' becomes 'ely' (Ely is a city in the Fens).
'ra' reversed gives 'ar'.
'ar' put inside 'ely' is 'EARLY'.
'in' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for early that I've seen before include "Before the expected time" , "In good time" , "Immature" , "sooner than expected" , "Before the usual time" .)