I realised that a local viewpoint a couple of miles from home would give me some relief from the light pollution and also 100 feet of elevation. At the fourth attempt I had a relative cloud free sky (on two attempts the only clouds in the sky were right in front of the conjunction) and frankly was a bit disappointed. The separation was greater than I had imagined and Saturn could only just be seen with the naked eye, however the rings could just about be distinguished with binoculars.
I spoke to someone who had taken a picture with his telescope similar to the one below and he said the closeness and brightness was overhyped in the media.