It's not worth starting a new thread on this one but the following might be useful to my fellow 'less experienced' members on here.
Having read up on the ins and outs of the apparent TC and ABS problems after the vehicle's return from France, I went outside last night to prepare things for getting underneath today to try to sort things out. The first thing I did was to re-read the handbook and suddenly realised that there is a fuse (No. 9) for the auto transmission, and lo and behold, it had blown. All adverse symptoms eliminated with one simple procedure.

It hasn't blown again, so I'm wondering what might have caused this in the first place. When the symptoms occurred the car had been towing from Bruges, for a couple of hours in very hot weather, with a break on the ferry of course. Could this have been a contributory factor or is it more likely just one of those times when a fuse gives up for no apparent reason.
Anyone got experience of this? The ATF is going to be changed imminently as a normal service item anyway.