I rather feel it should be really easy to exclude all widgets in a sidebar from a particular page but I can't work out how. Searched on forum for clues to no avail, would appreciate simple instructions! Thank you.

1. Make a new template without widgets.
   
2. Assign that template to the pages where you don't want widgets.

You could use one of several plugins for hiding widgets on certain pages. That of course would leave you with the widget area blank. You could also create a new virtual page template as a copy of the page.php and edit the code in that template to eliminate the sidebar and expand the content full width.

Thank you gentlemen, went for the easiest option and used a plugin.