Ed's let me down lately, no xmas card for him this year

Just for completeness I eventually came back to France and was able to work on the brakes. In the end I cleaned out the crud in the calipers but did not replace the seals as they were fine, obviously replaced the pads. I replaced the brake lines for the new braided lines that I had already bought and thanks to bevel heaven I replaced the seals in the master cylinder after giving the whole thing a really good clean.
Went out on the bike over the weekend and everything works as it should do. The brakes work and when I release the lever they release. A real improvement over the last time I took it out when they just locked on. The problem was likely a combination of things but there was a lot of crud in the brake fluid and the pistons were very stiff in the calipers before I cleaned them out, all likely as a result of the bike standing for several years in the previous owners garage. Thanks for all the advice I received on this problem