Hi again, and thank you everyone for your replies
Mickey 2 - that advice about not opening the bobbin mechanism is exactly the kind of advice and warning I was hoping for, thank you.
Cathyvv - my heart says buy for nostalgia alone, but my head says I don't have room for an ornamental machine, hence my wish to know if it can be fixed up. Seems likely that it can :-)) As for fixing, I have learned that DH doesn't trust me with tools
Charley26 - Oddly enough, I'm not so far away from you today! Whilst I live in Scotland, I'm currently in Stafford, heading to Birmingham for the weekend. I never see this sort of thing on sale in Scotland.... However there's very little room left in the boot of the car, which is another issue altogether
Jennifer23 - these days I mostly do quilting, but have been known to do other things in the past. I probably don't do enough buttonholes to need a machine dedicated to that, but I can see me using it for topstitching and suchlike. One of the main things I hear regularly about vintage machines is how nice a stitch they make... Also resale value might influence DH lol.
Janey and John, thanks for those links, I'll get looking into them later today :-)
So thank you again for your advice, It's much appreciated. I'll let you know how things go.....
Kate