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0pt0, I took it to mean that, as each letter in the unclued entries has its source in a specific clue with an extra word, that letter is to be replaced with the initial letter of that clue's extra word. I was anxious about duplications and ambiguities at first.... Hope this helps!

0pt0, Greengage is correct. The twenty letters in the five-word message are the same as the first letters of the twenty clues with extra words in. You then need to replace all twenty with the corresponding first letter of the extra word in that clue. So if the first letter of the message was P, you would find a clue beginning with P with an extra word in it, and replace the P with the first letter of that word. It is complicated by the fact that some letters may appear more than once in the message, and the extra words in those clues may start with different letters. So care is needed.

I don’t know if I’m missing something but the alternative encoding that gives the 3 different friends and the central letter ends up with the wrong central letter and it’s in a bit of a funny place. Can anyone relate to that?

Grunos—yes I seem to be in the same state! Not quite sure what to make of it as until this point it’s all worked out pretty tidily.

Two things eluding me - and please don't try to explain because it would be giving too much away: I) where in the instructions are we told what the letter in the central cell must be? and ii) what is the link to the source of the Ladies' names? I can submit a solution which I'm pretty sure is correct. I'll await with interest the appearance in
3 weeks' time of the solution and notes.

Not giving anything away but the answer to your first question is the sentence that begins with "The same sequence"...