Thanks one and all. I do not have paintbrush on my windows XP and was loathe to download something to fix the problem, because every time I do I end up with massive problems. I usually then press restore and generally panic for a couple of hours.
I adopted the john from Kansas approach and my very understanding friend has messed around at his end and sent them to me as jpegs.
They are happily sited in ebay and I await to make my fortune.