I am playing devils advocate a bit here. Just as you have noticed a "fear culture" I would say I have seen the opposite. Complacency amongst stalkers. Many don't check at all so to disregard TB just because East Anglia is it a TB area is a touch callous. In all probability this wasn't TB or anything particularly nasty, although some pictures of the gland would have been helpful. I have seen TB and I'm sorry but I isn't always "fairly obvious" especially in the early stages of infection. I'm not a vet obviously but would a phone call to the AHVLA have hurt in this case, they would have been able to tell over the phone if it definitely wasn't suspect and if they had any concerns they would have sent a vet out.
My my point is the OP found something during his gralloch that concerned him enough to contact a friend and then post on here. What if it had been early TB? What did he do with the carcass and viscera? How far did he transport it?
I think that what Limulus is getting at is that very often a deer with a large parasite burden also has something else wrong with it, as if one is a result of the other, maybe the parasites are pulling on its immune system leaving it weak and open to other infections or maybe tick burden is higher on a deer that is already under the weather. Who knows?
like I said I spoke to a meat inspector .and if they don't know what there talking about then who dose .we pay them enough money to check every animal that gose to slaughter .ihave learnt a lot from speaking to them over the years