Thanks all for your input which has led to the query below which delivers.
Design considerations duly noted. I'm not sure there were any at the start I just began on the basis of I wonder if I can do this quicker and cheaper than the quotes. My latter history was with Lotus Notes/Domino about...
Worked 16 years in IT related stuff until 2002 when I left the scene and trained as a nurse.
Never regretted that for a minute, but now have a reporting requirement and decided I'd do a database myself so I'm back to all the frustrations I thought I'd left far behind.
I have three tables client, episode, notes
there is a unique client id
there are multiple episodes per client identified uniquely by date/time
there are multiple notes per episode with a unique creation date/time
I want to query joining the three tables and end up with one record that...