YES the mail was set up correctly and was working fine. It wasn't until after I downloaded mozilla thunderbird mail client that I noticed it had stopped working. I re-checked all the settings and they were all correct. Checked my firewall to see that it wasn't blocking Avast and it wasn't plus uninstalled a spyware, worm intrusion blocker I had running encase it was that. Still no luck.
Have solved the program...I uninstalled Avast and reinstalled it and now it is working again.