[eluser]Perkin5[/eluser]
No I've just realised the answer to my problem. It's because inside the template view there are other nested view statements - the 'snippet'view is called from within the template view, and the only thing passed in is the name of the 'snippet'. I was thinking that the 'snippet'itself was being passed in as $data.
GOT IT!!!
Thanks to all responders.