Well after someone came around the buy the esc, turned out t be an old school friend, we got talking about RC and racing. I decided to try it again.
So today I've been putting the car back together, but looks like I've connected something wrong on the ESC and it started smoking. I managed to flick the switch back off, but the switch has now buckled and I've no way of knowing if it's totally kaput or just the switch.
Looks like I might be needing a new ESC! And the one I had looks like it isn't available now, at least not for the kind of money I paid.