Just a follow up...

I got another LCD the same, connected it, it came up with crazy characters on the screen... In desperation I swapped the cable I was using (IDE HDD cable) and low and behold it works.

On closer inspection, the cable I was using originally, has more conductors in it than pins on the plug. I pulled the plug apart, and there is a big copper bus-bar that connects certain pins to each other, and also I assume to ground. Must give some kind of shielding effect.

Anyway all sorted.

Thanks to everyone that helped...

Cheers
Dave