I am so stupid. I thought it was the Pristine style that had removed the function. It is not. As I was the only person posting, with a custom avatar, I never noticed the problem!
Someone else posted today and the default avatar showed up beside their name in the forum block. So I will have to do as you advised and change the settings to chmod 777. Thanks for the help.
--------------- Added [DATE]1422716428[/DATE] at [TIME]1422716428[/TIME] ---------------
Hi I am having trouble setting the permission for /images/avatars/thumbs to chmod 777.
Currently I only have one category called Generic Avatars.
Do I create new categories for Custom Avatars. Sorry a bit lost.