Check your port forwarding settings on your router. You maybe able to restrict the port forward to specific external IP address(es) or MAC address(es). If so you can whitelist your friends IP/Mac address.

@ericdave you should not edit that file but the autostart.sh. the file you edited is not meant to be user editable and will be overwritten.

Genius . Thank you very much. very happy now :-)

@BuZz Thanks for all the info.

I am pretty new to Linux but I think I should be okay with the VPN portion of it by following a guide.

As for enabling VPN on boot for RetroPie, that should be as simple correct? Just SSH into the Pi and edit the settings there?

Sorry for the dumb questions!

@ExarKunIv

Thanks for the response. I have manged to make progress thanks to the seo-michael.co.uk link. However, now that I have 5 VPN locations configured, my connectivity is failing me. I won't say more until I've fought for a while longer. It's possible that I overcome this obstacle, too.