Thanks for tour help
1) Sorry I did'nt know about the code tags...I have added them.
2) == works for me? Perhaps my version of bash excepts both???
3) Brilliant!!! Thankyou
" Thre's no need for ls, and it is the cause of your problem, since all elements of a pipeline are run in subshells."
This fixed my problem. I dont actually understand why yet, but I will have a read. Thank You!!!!
4) I will remember to use $PWD in the future. In my original code I did not need to know the current directory...this was needed for this cut down version.

Thanks Again for all your help!!!