Ok having read the link from wanderson and the info from Ray I have managed to get the servo to work on the sweep program, no stepper motors yet but they are in the post 
so with the shield connected I have the servo running connected to pin 9 as per the tutorial same as if it was running on the main board
but the shield has 0-53 digital connections and the main board has 12 - pins 2-13 so how do I address the pins on the shield?
reading the tutorial it seems I can use pins 3,5,7,9,11 as servo feeds what happened to the even pins?
one step forward - feels great, but, raises more questions 
any help again appreciated