For those of you kind enough not to tell me to bore off with the saga.....I'm home with a working phone!!! B)
The manager (Paul) wasn't in today, as I'd half expected, but I spoke to a younger member of their staff (Sam) and explained all the story. She was more than helpful. The fraud thing is still ongoing, BUT there seems to have been some confusion regarding the network supplier. Back when I first got the number/network in 2012, it was registered with Orange, who were subsequently taken over by EE. The little icon on my phone has showed EE for yonks so I thought no more of it. When I went to see what was happening with my account online yesterday (Orange) it showed my account was closed! hmy: so I thought right, that settles it, I'm going with another company and quitting EE altogether. Then Sam twigged that the Orange sim card wouldn't connect to EE so she's changed it this morning to an EE sim and ta-dah - texts and voicemails started coming through right away! When Sam checked my account, it's an updated one with EE and I'm still 'with' them, but she said if I wanted to change networks, given the hassle I have had, then I could do so, after the fraud thing is settled. I'm going back in to see Paul later next week to discuss this in more detail.
Thanks for listening xxx