"....as apparently they have no record of this...." - typical. I am no longer surprised as the extent of the disorganisation becomes more and more evident. Not only could you not make it up but when you recount the examples abroad you can see in the foreign listeners' eyes that they are utterly convinced you are lying (being anti-British as some on here would call it). They simply can't believe that the UK is like this in 2018, 1918 maybe but not 2018.
I too wonder which removed answers have hit the dirt, I keep missing all the juicy stuff.
It's good that you have the result you were hoping for.