Thanks for the advice. I thought I would report back to the conference and tell you how I got on.
You were right all I needed to do was depress a part of the electrical connector which released it and then it came off easily.
It may be of interest to anyone doing this job in future that the replacement switch (which is kind of a spark plug in shape and size) required a larger socket than the original (but the same thread-size obviously - or it wouldn't have fitted the hole), so do not make assumptions based on the replacement switch size.
Also when I removed the electrical connector I found one of pins from the switch had broken off and was embedded in the electrical connector and the other pin broke away when pull out the electrical connector... I (well actually my kind neighbour) sorted the electrical connector out with some diligent use of a a set of fine pliers.
If I didn't have to borrow a set of deep sockets from my neighbour (which, incidentally, I returned promptly) and the pins had not corroded away on the switch, I guess the whole job should not take longer than 15 minutes from start to finish (that's including refilling the radiator with coolant).
Much to my relief, doing this job solved my overheating problem as the switch was the faulty item in the system, mainly because the pins had corroded away.