Thanks for the pointer.
I am now building myself (I hope) a local 'ppm' repository.
Having downloaded one ZIP file and unzipped it I see that I get a 'ppd' file in my top directory plus a '.tar.gz' file in a subdirectory.
The README tells me I just have to run 'ppm' in the top directory.
Logic (an uncertain tool) suggests that if I download all the ZIP files to a directory, unzip them all then delete the zip files (or unzip to a different target directory) I should then have a local 'ppm' repository.
We shall see.
Now wondering why there isn't a download of 'all modules'; perhaps I just haven't found it yet.
Could there be a 'ppm::mini' to match 'CPAN::mini'?

Thanks for all the help so far
Dave R