Old time in country record (8)
I believe the answer is:
notation
'record' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'old time in country' is the wordplay.
'old' becomes 'o' (common abbreviation eg in OE for Old English).
'time' becomes 't'.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'country' becomes 'nation' ('nation' can be a synonym of 'country'**).
'o'+'t'='ot'
'ot' inserted within 'nation' is 'NOTATION'.
(Other definitions for notation that I've seen before include "Set of representative symbols" , "An added comment or instruction" , "Set of symbols representing quantity etc." , "Written comment" , "System of signs or symbols" .)