ssh-agent, keychain, xsession bash_profile scripting

[Adam Hardy <adam.ant@cyberspaceroad.com>]

I've been chasing my tail trying to work this one out following different 
examples off the web, but can't sort it out and keep getting the old

"Could not open a connection to your authentication agent."

from ssh-add, and nothing but inaction from keychain.

I know everything has to run as a child of ssh-agent to gain access to its 
envvars, but I don't how to achieve this.

keychain id_rsa in my .bash_profile doesn't work, I still have to give ssh my 
password for the private key when I use ssh.

I guess I should be setting up the envvars in my bash env somehow when getting 
them via 'ssh-agent -s' but I don't know the syntax to do this.

I always boot into a command line and then run startx when I need it, and I 
think herein lies the problem - although I can't get it to work on the command 
line either with keychain or ssh-add.

Thanks
Adam