Both by status and flying class you should have been Group 1. There is, however, an increasing lot of of pax joining in for pre-boarding. IME, there can be 6 or more joining the assistant taking a disabled person to the ac in a wheelchair. A family, seemingly of three generations, in all 11 persons, joining the visually abled 6' teenager, eagerly playing some wargame on his iPhone. But for sure, he was 'a kid' so rules were followed.
Not to speak of the outrageous routine that BA has adopted of letting all pax traveling HBO gate-check their bags AND pre-board. AA has a better routine, as gate-check is tagged and left, the pax going back to wait for his/her group to board. My saddest memory of BA short-haul was 32 pax in the pre-boarding group, of which all but three were in the gate-check group