First let me say thank you for the nice replies. It is always awkward to be the newbie. The suggestions are correct and I will just post this clarification in case another newcomer in the future experience the same problem:
When you start a new project from File/project manager and save it with whatever name you choose, and assuming the project is an 'Advanced First-Person shooter' (this may be true for some other settings but I have not tested it), the editor opens a map automatically called start.map (under 'The name you chose'/Maps/Start.map. This map has two boxes and presumably, as other people have suggested a camera. I deleted the boxes and started to create my own content, only as I mentioned the FPSPlayer does not work in this map. You need to ignore the map and go to File/new which opens a plank map that can then be saved with whatever name. In this map the FPSPlayer does work as planned because it is devoid of any pre-set content (including the dreaded camera)
I missed this point when I first started, leading to some head scratching. Apologies if the problem was trivial to experienced users but should someone else be as thick as I was, at least there is a solution in the Forum now.
Thank you. Now onto some creative modelling/building.