It's nice to know you have no problems. I have installed both 1.5.3 and 1.5.4 on each server more than once, I have configured automatically and I have configured manually but all to no avail. I can get 1.5.4 working on my local server so I don't think it's anything I am doing. As I can get 1.5.2 working on my remote servers my original question was, can I move the school bits easily from the 1.5.3 version and put them on 1.5.2. Is it as easy as copying the templates folder and the joomla.sql file over.
Changed my FTP client and it all went right!