Right, I might be fixed. Problem 1 was that the old Brave icon pinned to my taskbar, now in grey, did not open the old version when clicked so I presumed it was dead link to a wiped old version.
I have found the old version in the directories and run it manually there. Then I exported my old bookmarks and imported the html file to the new Brave.
Then I did import settings from Brave (old) and unticked the bookmarks check mark. Now i have my logins and passwords again by the looks of it. Hopefully nothing is now missing.