Plusnet email using a mobile phone

[#1]

I cannot justify a Blackberry or iPhone etc. because I would not use them enough, since I am retired.  But occasionally it would be useful to be able to access email from my mobile phone.  When I am in France, which is regularly, it is easy - just look for a MacDonalds and they all have free WiFi, so I just take the laptop and sit in the car !
But it is not so easy here in the UK to find free WiFi hot spots, though I am sure they exist.
Vodafone charges apparantly 50 pence per day for up to 25Mb on my PAYG mobile phone, which seems a sensible alternative.  When WAP first came on the scene, I used to use it to get my email, but that was in the days of the very first Plusnet email platform - I cannot remember the name of it.  But it worked so well that I used to use it all the time even at home on the desk-top, because the download speeds for the WAP address using a dial-up connection in those days was far faster than the main Plusnet conventional webmail (this was pre-broadband).  But needless to say, I've long forgotten all the details, and perhaps they don't work anymore anyway.
So my question is what could I use today to access my email just using a simple, unsophisticated mobile phone ?  Mine is about five years old (Sharp GX15) and has WAP and GPRS, and I have no intention of changing it !  I am on Vodafone Pay-as-you-go and can evidently access a thing called Vodafone Live!
So how would I access my Plusnet email using this ?  Can anyone advise please ?

[#2]

You could use webmail if your phone has a browser?

[#3]

I'm guessing from what the OP says that it only has a WML browser, which won't be of much help. However, the phone does apparently support MIDP 2, which would allow the installation of a hopefully fairly usable version of Opera Mini, which could then perhaps be used to browse to PN's webmail. Or perhaps a mobile Java e-mail client might work, which would allow a direct POP3/IMAP to the necessary mailbox(es).
A note about WiFi by the way: as is the case in France, all McDonalds branches over here also offer free WiFi. (Well, they should do - I guess there's a possibility it might not have been rolled out completely yet.)

[#4]

Well, thanks for that.  I was unaware about MacDonalds here in the UK offering WiFi also.  Excellent.  I shall try it. - the WiFi that is, not the MacDonalds !  They have it in Canada as well, but you have to pay !
As for the browsers, I shall try it.  Having difficulty getting the Voodoofone to work even with Voodoofone Live! at present and am waiting for answers from Voodoofone themselves.  But when i do get connected to the internet, I will try the browsers you suggest.  Many thanks for that too !

[#5]

I found it best not to mention the name McDonalds in Vancouver