OK, so my last post was correct iff “pretty sure” == “don’t have a clue” ??
I did the expedient thing – added /index.php in the permalink structure.
I did update *a* .htaccess file, I’m guessing I need to do some reading to know exactly *which* directory that file is supposed to be in as it didn’t appear to make any difference.
As far as I can tell mod_rewrite is being loaded – it’s in modules.conf and the file exists. So, for now the problem is resolved and I have some research to do to sort out how to resolve it properly.
Thanks again for the pointer.