Right. Have just had a good pummelling at the osteopath. Thankfully my injury isn't as serious as she was expecting from my description 
.
Some words of advice from her to me, that I am passing on to the rest of you - you can do with this as you wish!
First, I was doing too much too soon. At my age, and level of fitness, together with the fact that I've never been a runner, was just asking my poor decrepit old body too much. Although the idea of building up the runs and length of runs is a good one, her view is that starting with 8 minute runs is too much. She herself started a training programme in December, for skiing trip in February, and started with one 1 minute run per day.
Second, running shoes. I have a (hopefully) decent pair of running shoes. However, apparently soft tissue injuries like mine have been on a steady increase since specifically-designed running shoes have been marketed. The current theory is that all the cushioning and protection that they give us actually prevents the body/feet working as they would naturally - hence the current move towards 'bare foot running'
www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1170253/The-painful-truth-trainers-Are-expensive-running-shoes-waste-money.html Sorry that it's from the DM, but this was the best article I found when Googling that supported this
Third, think about your posture and stance when running. The aim is to land on the outside of the ball of your foot and roll forward onto your toes - not to land on your heel, as you would when walking. If you're landing on your heels, the shock is being absorbed all the way up your leg. If you land on the ball of your foot this doesn't happen, plus the momentum is a forward one, and an easier one.
www.posetech.com/ This also seems to be behind the POSE theory of running
Lean forward when you're running and this will encourage the right posture and help prevent landing on your heel, and take shorter strides.
Stretching. This is something that you may or may not be advised to do before you go running, however, the C25K site says you don't need to stretch beforehand, but just to do the brisk walk first. My osteopath thinks that stretching beforehand is a good thing, but that the muscles do need to be warm first - especially if you're not very fit. On balance, she says that stretching is a good thing, especially as you can get a good feel for how your muscles are feeling before you go running. If they're feeling a bit stiff, then get warm and may be do a bit more walking before you start running.
I think that's it.
For me, she has advised me to start walking and to build my fitness up this way before I consider running again.