Thanks all for your input - sorry I’m slow to reply!
Something peculiar has happened - the light has started working again all of its own accord!!
My only explanation is that I had a bit of a poor getaway from a junction which resembled more of a kangaroo in transit on the way home last night, possibly that shook the car enough to move some dodgy electrics?!
Other than that, i’m clueless!
Self healing , it must be a christmas miracle
That’s two of us then. I’ve had an ongoing problem with a rear light cluster on my Suzuki Swift. It kept suffering water ingress and the internal metal contact parts had corroded. I’d removed it three or four times over the last few weeks to dry everything out and each time I’d got everything to work again except the reverse light.
I tried new bulbs, swapped bulbs, etc.
Earlier this week in desperation I finally gave up and bought an entire replacement cluster. I refitted it and did another lights check…guess what - no reverse light!
In my annoyance I gave it a slap with the palm of my hand and the light came on!
Hmm,
My reversing lights stopped today on the drive. Strangely they seems to work fine when on the road (I can tell because the reversing sensor beeps when I put it into reverse). I reversed onto the drive and it was working fine, but then taking it out of reverse and putting it on again and it stops working.
The point to note is my drive is on a slope (reversed on the rear of the car is at the lower end of the slope).
So it seems I may have developed an intermittent problem with them not working on a slope. I’m will be trying it out on a hill to see if it is indeed related to slopes, or just randomly not working. I guess I haven’t noticed before as it works getting onto the drive and then I don’t really need to put it into reverse again on the drive 
Kind of worried its going to be one of those faults that gets worse and starts doing it more and more. Looks tricky to swap the witch out if thats the problem from the above posts.
Don’t use the reversing sensor as a guide as to your reversing light operation. Ignoring the sensor, does the light work?
The resurrection of an old thread has thrown up an interesting change in the rules which will affect owners of newer cars. The new (May 2018) MOT rules (section 4.6.3) now require all the reversing lamps on cars used after September 2009 to operate. It’s a major defect and MOT failure if it does not. One more thing to check before MOT, but a great contribution to road safety??
JS
no they didn’t work.