I might have found something. Remember I said the BIOS was limited? Strange, but when you get to the BOOT area, you have to hit enter to display the options. I just noticed there was an arrow next to OS Boot Manager. Does that mean it is hiding something as well?
Rebooted into BIOS and YES: a window opens up with
ubuntu (KINGSTON DISK SN)
sparky (KINGSTON DISK SN)
UBUNTU was highlighted. So i selected Sparky, hit F6 to move it to the top and rebooted.
Grub appeared without going to bash shell.
Dern ancient BIOS menus 
So others were right in saying it is something in the BIOS that needs fixing when this happens.
Sparky controlled GRUB, but BIOS had ubuntu GRUB selected. Conflict caused it?
Another lesson in Linux learned!
Sheila