Thank you all for your inputs and, if nothing else, it's a way of venting one's spleen.
There are several sad factors involved with todays driver that add up to potential accidents, and has been noted already by others – laziness and just not paying enough attention to operate the vehicle at ALL times; cars are treated by their owners as another physical extension of themselves and woe betide if you touch their car and, as an extension to this observation, I cannot understand why they will give more room to overtaking another car and not us. Maybe it's deemed cars will cause more damage on impact and we won't.
I know the other exit routes in Lewes Dan (and used those too) and I've been cycling for quite a number of years, and this is the very first time there's been any sort of incident in Lewes. We're always on more alert at 'commuter times' during the day, but this was midday-isa, and she was just a dozy cow: lazy, away with the fairies somewhere, staring at god-know's-what. Her speed was very low, which suspects me to speculate that perhaps she did see me, but just didn't have a fucking clue to hold back at that pinch-point traffic spot. She turned down St Andrew's Lane, but I couldn't be bothered to go and remonstrate with her, and frighten the kids in the car.
One time, after buying an axe at the Sunday market held at Brighton Marina, I continued my ride and, on a stretch that joins Newhaven to Lewes, where often (nowadays) you can get lazy overtaking, this time people gave me plenty of room. Maybe it was the wooden handle sticking out the top pf the backpack? Who knows?