Just to update this feed as I have managed to resolve the issue using ChatGPT ,Bard and Stack overflow.
I had to adjust the my.cnf file located here:
TOP MENU - file/open template/MySQL(my.cnf)/5.7.39 
The in the file add the line - sql_mode="" .. to the [mysqld] section as follows
# The MySQL server
[mysqld]
sql_mode=""
user        = MAMP_system_user_MAMP
#port       = 9999
socket      = /Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql/mysql.sock
My SQL Query in #1 post above now works!

 















