Well to finish this off
I over came the grub selection by deleting the unwanted kernel and now it boots straight up with no intervention.
One problem was the computer hung on a reboot it booted fine but failed on a reboot.
I was able to work out the reboot problem on the 'debian users forum' and
HERE
you can see the whole topic.
Short version is I found under the "advanced tab" in the bios settings for
csm [enabled]
boot option filter [legacy only] <===
network [do not launch]
storage [legacy only]
video [legacy only]
other pci devices [uepi first]
the boot option filter [legacy only] did the trick. Now it boots and reboots as expected.
Running this system for over a month now with no problems.
Thanks
Jim