I’ve spent a lot of time in the British Airways lounge complexes. Nice way to spend some time at Heathrow. Down side is you have to have some sort of airline status or be flying upfront.
A while back I flew quite a bit and that made the travel a bit more bearable.
I can confirm your report, because I was able to sneak into those lounges a few times (Stateside as well), despite my lowest of the lowest status with the “Club”, but security became tight.