Very, very late update. I have landed a Software Engineer job, at a firm which markets a computer booking system for minicab firms. After four years out of the industry, they are offering a comparative pittance of a wage, but will review matters after sixty days.

They threw a technical test at me, and told me I had scored 79%. Quite how they calculated that score from twenty "true or false" questions is rather a mystery. Luckily, they use software which I have used before, and also have on this very PC on which I am composing this message. (I have been attempting to rewrite some "abandonware" games in proper object-oriented, non-spaghetti C++. It is a slow process, but it has kept my hand in.)

I will still keep working behind the bar at weekends, to earn petrol money for the rest of the week.