OK, success!!
I carried out a basic idle setup, which didn't cure the problem, but I did discover the steel coolant pipe leaking!
Once I'd replaced the pipe, I had a good look around for any other possible causes, and found that the plug on the idle swich had been played with. One of the terminals had backed out of the plug, and was making/breaking the connection, causing the elusive fault.
A rare one I grant you, but may help someone else in the future!