Derek,
I think you should persevere with Elements6.
I hope you don't mind but I grabbed one of your pics and played around in my Elements6, which I assume is similar to the Windows edition.
I did these just for fun, and each version no more than 5 minutes each.
I just clicked on the Enhance and went down and only used the 'adjust lighting', 'adjust colour', and 'convert to black and white', and just mucked about with the various sliders. It's great fun, and I usually go way over the top, and my style is quite probably not to everyone's taste, but, hey.
So here's your original + 2 variations.
Like you, I'm OAP (old and potty).
Cheers,
Gandolfi.