/opt/sbin/cron -c gives me,

/opt/sbin/cron: can't lock /opt/var/run/cron.pid, otherpid may be 10559: Resource temporarily unavailable

not sure how to chech cron version.

you have already posted it, 4.1.9, but it is quite old, at about 10 (or 20?) years old (you have the man page installed, I don't really know how that version works).
You have started cron over a running one, that won't and shouldn't work. You need to kill the previous one. If you are sure there is no cron running you can remove /opt/var/run/cron.pid, before starting it again (by the way I told you -n, not -c, but probably ...)

Still nothing happening, the line executes from the command line and prints a log file (which shows no errors). But Cron just does not run anything at all. cron.pid only sticks around whilst the process appears to be running and then its gone. Is there a better/younger version that you can suggest that might work?.

in general cron may send also mails, so you can check if the user has got any. (but probably not). You need to type only mail. (see man page again).
You cannot easily upgrade your cron, you need to use what you have. Finally if a command works from command line but does not work from cron means usually misconfigured cronjobs. You might want to write a shell script which will contain your command, including redirection, save stdout and stderr and everything else you need. And you only will run this shell script both from command line and cron.

Complete dead end with cron now, Don't think I have the correct knowledge to write a script. I am after all a complete novice. Can you point me at a tutorial that may help me out.

probably you can start here: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Bash-Prog-Intro-HOWTO.html
or here: https://www.howtogeek.com/67469/the-...ng-the-basics/

1 members found this post helpful.

Wish I could have figured out it but none the less, thanks for your help.

if you wish to work on linux you must learn the basics. Otherwise.....