Thank you for your reply.
I now have managed to keep my subheads/tabs up while browsing products etc...
(thanks to Fernando:
http://forum.x-cart.com/viewtopic.php?t=12058)
but they disappear as soon as I click on view cart or checkout ... because there is no specific category selected!
Would the {if $location[1].0 eq "Category Name"} resolve that?