Ok, guys, thanks for the pointers, but I managed it a few hours back. Another look at the online manuals, which, take note OT developers, are not as easy to follow as an ageing programmer would like, and I found the solution, simple really:

1. Create a QModelIndex for your model
index = self.listModel.index(0, 0, QModelIndex())

Use the QModelIndex as the first argument to a select for you selectionModel, which can either be the default selection model or another instantiation that can be passed to other views...and then use the same selection model as the second argument but with the Select method...
2. self.mySelectionModel.select(index, self.mySelectionModel.Select );

That's a selection I won't forget.