Well it took a while, but the brickwall is partly down!
Regimental diaries yielded nothing, and the Buffs museum couldnt help either, then purely by chance I stumbled across his name (Albert Brown) in someone elses family tree and they had a copy of his army records! they make very interesting reading. First thing was to check the place and date of birth and next of kin to make sure I was looking at the right person.
Most army records I have seen run to 3 or 4 pages, his was 35! seems he was a very naughty boy, posted to South Africa at first he has several pages of disciplinary actions for various offences, having a dirty rifle, late on parade, drunk on guard duty, going awol etc , his unit (the Buffs) was then sent to Hong Kong where the same pattern continued, he even managed to sell his uniform twice, then he finally deserted (probably a relief to his C.O.). a few years gap in the records and then he appears again, he gave himself up about a week before the outbreak of world war one (luck or did he know what way the wind was blowing? a little later and deserters would have been shot), since his regiment had moved on by that time he gave himself up to the Duke of Cornwall's light infantry, who made a note that he was using the name Frank Goldfinch as an alias and then turned him loose again, I cannot find any record of a court martial or hearing, but assume that one must have occurred under these circumstances (anyone able to suggest where the relevant record would be?). I checked with the DOCLI museum archivist and unfortunately their regimental diary for that period does not survive.
Because the records finished so close to WW1 he was filed under soldiers who served in the great war, somewhere I hadnt been looking for him because I knew he wasnt in the forces by then.
then I found him again on a shipping list, this time under the Goldfinch alias, coming to england from hong kong in the 1920s on the ship Katori Maru with his wife and daughter.
just need to trace a marriage certificate, his death certificate and my grandmothers birth certificate (which it transpires might not have been burnt after all, but thats a different story) now to fill in the blanks.
Jon