I've seen a couple of posts on here about the Mk.1 Antenna which seemed to end fairly peaceably but I'm having a real job removing mine. It unscrews easily - up to a point - then just spins round. I've tried grabbing the threads with some needle-nose pliers and unscrewing the main antenna, I've tried "giving it a good old tug", I've even tried mole-grips on it but all to no avail.

I really don't want to take the head-lining down from the interior so any suggestions would save me a lot of aggro!

Put some more effort into tugging it... honestly

What he said. It needs a really good tug.

Thanks - I'll have another go after eating me spinach. One question though - does the antenna come away from the screw or does the screw come away from the housing on the roof? I ask as I went and bought a Richbrook fancy chrome antenna and want to make sure it fits afterwards!

Give it some welly, believe me it does pull out and you wont do any damage to the base. The brass screw stays in the end of the actual aerial.

As stated in a previous post I used a Snap-On Tools angled clip remover and the aerial just fell out.

Incidentally the replacement aerial I put in was absolute rubbish reception wise. Since replaced it with the original Skoda one.

Those ariels are in there firm as it is a security measure. Dam annoying. You need to unscrew the ariel until it just spins and then fold it downwards into the little grove at the rear end and then pull.