Aaron_dyer:
i had a garbage LedControl Library...I deleted it and downloaded / extracted the other one...so I think I may be in business now....
I was in the process of zipping and uploading my LedControl library as it works fine on 1.0.1. I won't bother now as you have got it working.
As to the text being backwards that's probably down to either wrongly defined font matrix or wiring I'm afraid.