problums gtng speeling chucker to wrok wit AbiWord

[Bob <spam@homeurl.co.uk>]

Hi, I installed AbiWord using the following command

apt-get -s -V install abiword abiword-plugins myspell-en-gb myspell-en-us

which pulls in libenchant1c2a amongst other things.  For some reason the 
spell checker doesn't work in AbiWord (either in real time or press F7 
mode, this document show no spelling errors & if I press F7 now it jumps 
strait to the "the spelling check is complete" popup) or 
OpenOffice.org Write, it does work in icedove though.

My system local is en.sg with a US keyboard (set at install time) which 
would probably point to en.us dictionaries, which is why I installed 
them, but I'm English so I'd like to use the GB ones.

Any ideas where I should look?

Thanks.