Thanks very much,
Now I understand very clearly, I looked again at the two JAR-FCL Appendices mentioned above and diligently went through them side by side and ticked the exercises off one by one. All exercises seemed to be in both appendices....
Guess my mistake.......yes I didn't read the letter M in the column toward the right hand side of the page.
For those who haven't ventured into JAR-FCL 1, the part I am referring to is the table in Appendix 3 to JAR-FCL 1.240. This defines the renewal skill test exercises. All of the initial issue skill test exercises are listed here but NOT all have M for mandatory next to them to say they are mandatory for renewal.
I am obliged for your time BEagle. It can be a little complicated for those of us who don't fly as a profession. Time with which to investigate and dig this type of information out is sometimes limited to leisure time and sometimes even instructors have different interpretations, which is not really surprising.