Well this is one of those things that should have taken a less time to figure out than what it.
Two files one called start.swf and one called 1.swf
Start loading the 1.swf with with the line
loadMovieNum("1.swf", 1);
This loads into level 1. To make life easy the first frame of 1.swf needs to be blank !!! (this is where I was going wrong) . That first frame also has a stop action.
One the last frame of start.swf trigger the playback of 1.swf with the line
_level1.gotoAndPlay(2);
!!!!