Problem solved !
I still have a 32 bit machine therefore I downloaded mysql-workbench-community-6.1.7-1ubu1204-i386.deb.
I tried to install it with sudo dpkg -i command but kept getting an error message.
Tried sudo apt-get install -f then a reinstall of the workbench deb file with still the same result.
In the error message I was getting :
mysql-workbench-community depends on libctemplate0; however:
Package libctemplate0 is not installed.
Search on the web gave me the following site for libctemplate0
http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise/i386/libctemplate0/download
I downloaded the package, installed it and retried the workbench installation and it worked fine.
I now have workbench. I did a summary check. The data still seems to be there. The version is 6.1.
Thanks for your help