I need some inspiration - not being very technical. The heating failed (suddenly) during the cold weather, which I assumed was down to one of the switches sticking, but a dozen or so miles along th road the temp warning light came on and the temp sudenly shot up off the scale - I pulled over and let it cool down but there was no heat to the coolant so looks like it hasn't been circulating. limped it back home in small bursts and waited for the warm weather to thaw it out. so its thawed, no loss of coolant but still no heating or circulation of coolant. tried to give it run - 5 miles or so the other day, temp shot up again and couldn't pull in for a mile. gauge came down but temp warning light comes on immediately after startup now, even if gauge says cold. Any idea what this is telling me - other than with the leaky door sills, duff bushes, timing belt replacement due I'm likely toi just scrap the thing.

cheers

Sounds like a combination of faults/issues. Coolant light could be the contacts for coolant level in the expansion tank needing cleaned. Cold coolant with high temp gauge sounds suspiciously like frozen coolant. So check anti freeze strength. I would have the car scanned for fault codes as well.