As already stated , if the number were originally issued by BT ,( if you got it 40 years ago, the chances are it will be BT ) and the other company’s you quote , have between them, ‘lost’ your number then it’s almost certainly on it’s way back to BT , and eventually BT will be able to allocate it to someone ( a new BT customer or a BT customer wanting a ‘new’ number by renumbering their line )
If your preference is to stay with VM, then it will be with whatever number they have now allocated to you, and the ‘old’ number will just be a BT number waiting for BT at some point in the future allocating it to a ‘new’ BT customer, the chances of VM getting the number you actually want are slim to non existent.
If the number is of such importance that you would do whatever it takes to have it back, then you would need to join BT and arrange for that number to be allocated to you , getting a random number to start with and then a renumber back to the number you want, that may take a short while....what you do with the Virgin service would be up to you, and would be unrelated to the ‘order’ made with BT...if you don’t want to use BT at any cost, then that’s pretty much the end of the story.
