Thank you Paulina_Z for your reply.
Yes I did resolve the issue eventually, but it took about a day and a half. I had to phone the help number, but could not do that at first because there appeared to be a wider issue with VM which meant that no operatives (human or bots) were available until the Sunday. The (human) person who helped me on Sunday was very kind and talked me patiently through the process, involving downloading another browser. That was a scary as well as frustrating experience, but I was so relieved to have my email back.
I had no idea what the problem was at first because I could not get through on Saturday because no-one (or thing) was accepting messages or phone calls. When I did eventually get access to my email, I found the email telling me that my email had been blocked due to suspicious activity. But I could not see that email because my email had been blocked. There has to be a better way to notify users of problems like this without recourse to multiple email accounts. I think in any case I will try to move away from using Virgin Media as my main email account as I don't want to go through this experience again.
