Hi all,
Just closing off this thread in case anyone was wondering.
Thanks for all you help. I ended up starting again with the knowledge provided. This time I installed the BE correctly and the remote FE connected first time.
Now that I finally have that part running I can start playing with LIRC and all of the other Myth features.

Just one parting question: Does WInMyth currently work? I tried installing it on my fiancée's Laptop (haven't been able to convert her to Linux yet) following the small amount of instructions available. Installed the Myth Filters and NetFramework and then WinMyth; tested the MySQL connection and got the "seems to work" message. Tried running WinMyth and got a connection error.
I have not got any recordings on the server yet and I am not sure that WinMyth can be used to watch live TV; could this be why I am not connecting?
Is there any issue with WInMyth and the latest version of MythTV?
Is there something simple to fix? Change a setting/permission on the BE?

If there is not a simple fix I am happy to abandon this quest (but it would have been a neat way to serve media across the network).

Once again thanks for all your help, the time has now come for me to start having trouble getting the features to work. ;-)