Burnt Christmas Cake!

I have been using Delia's recipes since Swop shop days! and have many happy memories of dinner parties using her recipes. I have made her Christmas cake in the past but this year it was burnt all around the perimeter. I had the tin lined and double brown paper around the tin, I was using Falcon Profession 100 FX electric oven, not using fan but did use top and bottom elements, should I just have been using the bottom one? It started to smell burnt about 2.5 hours in but I followed her instructions and didn't touch it for 4 hours by which time it was beyond saving :( So many delicious ingredients wasted. Can you please advise what I'm doing wrong, looking at other recipes they state 2 hours + for 8" fruit cake.