In reply to Moacs:
A note/update for those that may follow....
I went with Thunderbird, just because a few people mentioned it (and UKCers are generally not trolls in their advice on this kind of stuff).
I followed the download link above.
The download is easy - asks if you want to open the file. There's also an installation video on the Thunderbird site that I "painted along" to (also linked above). The screens weren't exactly the same as what I was seeing, but close and it was reassuring. I changed no settings from default.
Once installed, it opened fine...and proceded to download my mails. Took a while as it also replicated the folders I'd had previously (which is Good). It didn't replicate a few folders that were in the "Storage Folders" bit of Windows Live mail (which I think were from when I started with Windows 7), but I'll just keep those in archive on the old program.
The interface is ok. I loathe programs that allow you to accidentally delete whole threads when you just want to delete one message, and it doesn't seem to set you up with that trap. Folders are easy to navigate. I haven't seen what's happened with address book and I don't use calender so can't comment on those. Search is fine.
Finally, I *think* the following are true:
1. My mail is now in cloud as well as local, so not just me backing it up
2. It'll work post May when Google wants stricter security
Thanks once again for everyone's help
Post edited at 10:09