Well, I'm now back from Wickes/Toolstation armed with a post-hole digger and a demolition crowbar, the second of which surprised me both by its weight, which is considerable, and by having its non-pointed end bent over at an angle: not only does it not look like that in the website illustration, one of the customer reviews talks about bashing it home with a sledgehammer, which sounds quite tricky. But we'll see.
Fred, thanks for the petrol-driven auger suggestion, but as you can see I've decided to try the manual route, at least to begin with.
Bert