Charade

Update 3
 
Greetings and apologies for not advising the outcome sooner,
 
To cut a long story short, after much to-ing and fro-ing of emails and photos between dealer and Skoda it was decided the problem as it stood lay with a control box and the light switch itself (which.apparently has fused links inside it??). When these were replaced the lighting "sort of" worked - their words not mine. Much scratching of heads at dealer and (apparently) at Skoda.
 
The dealer kept the car for a couple of days (I used one of their courtesy cars) and eventually they found the problem. It was to do with the front accessory socket - cigarette lighter socket in the old days. From what I could gather there is a plastic cover on the underside to prevent contact with metal creating shorting etc. which wasn't there on my vehicle; or at least had come free. This was replaced and voilà, all is well.
 
This work was all done under warranty - I can't fault the dealer or Skoda for the way they handled this. To be honest I didn't ask for too many details about the problem as 1) I was just happy to have a fully working car and 2) I wanted to get out of the dealers before they changed their mind and decided to charge me.
 
AndyW