Well on it goes it seems! Taken the car to a place that I trust, and they gave it a VERY keen check over.............their conclusions............Slight wear to one of the ball joints, more severe wear to the universal joint!!(Which I beleive is in the so called steering box?). The chap said it had the amount of wear/play that he would expect to see on a car with 100000+ miles on it. (The car has done 22000 miles). THOUGH he did also say that due to the type of steering on the car (NON Rack & Pinion), unless he had another car to check it against it's hard to say if this is "Just the way it is" with this particular model of car. Thanks for the tip on the steering damper/stabilser I will def be trying one of those.