Hi Again,
Update
Currently testing but appears to work.
Ubantu 20.4
Loaded php5.5-fpm and started service
Edited the Apache2 template for the domain as follows
# ProxyPassMatch ^(.*\.php)$ fcgi://127.0.0.1:9000{homedir}/httpdocs/$1
# ProxyFCGISetEnvIf "true" PHP_ADMIN_VALUE "open_basedir={homedir}:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear; \n upload_tmp_dir={homedir}/phptmpdir; \n session.save_path={homedir}/phptmpdir;"
<FilesMatch \.php$>
# From the Apache version 2.4.10 and above, use the SetHandler to run PHP as a fastCGI process server
SetHandler "proxy:unix:/run/php/php5.6-fpm.sock|fcgi://localhost"
</FilesMatch>
Still yet to test lets encrypt and mysql acess etc .. but phpinfo() in the index file on this site shows 5.6, and another generic domain with the original template shows 7.4.