Thought that might be too easy a way out!

ha ha ha... vampire.

thankyou DJBMASTER for telling me about "closed
mash".

I did a mesh test and found over 40 open-faces.

when I imported it as a .ASE there were NO opened faces BUT now I have to re-rig and re-animate... mind you it's a small price to pay to get a game going.

OK the mesh is closed (without animation) and it runs with proper normals and shadow YAY!!!!

HOWEVER...

when I put animation on it... the normals once again flip and it AFU.