problem resolved after I removed the .htaccess file from the / directory.
I don’t understand why this would stop it from working when it worked perfectly the last time I updated the site but at least I now have something to work with to resolve the problem.
Ed
Forgot to add: I checked the wp-admin folder and did not see anything wrong. So I deleted the entire wp-admin folder, uploaded 3.2.1 from my desktop, extracted it and moved all the files into the /directory, giving me a new wp-admin folder.
This made no difference.
Ed