Well, I'm extremely grateful for all the help I've been offered in this thread. I really do have an understanding of the cloth room's dynamics now, that dozens of readings of the manual never gave me.

Good news is; adding all vertices in contact with the frame, to the choreographed group, did what I wanted. Bad news is; my fabric cover mesh is crap - which, to be honest, I already knew but was hoping to get away with - so it's back to Anim8or to make a new mesh, probably not till next weekend now though.

Again, many thanks all for the help.

John