Many thanks for your help Marcel,

Going to have a derived class from QGraphicsItem, override paint and boundingRect and the mousePressEvent. I did notice that it would also be possible to create a slot in the main window which could be emited from the scene when an item is selected ( capture the mouseEvent within the scene ) - although I think just overriding the mousePressEvent within the subclassed QGraphicsItem class seems simpler.

Regards,
Steve