A very clear and comprehensive answer, thankyou. That makes it a lot clearer. So a forward CofG will point nose down in a spin, and there is plenty of elevator deflection left to recover because the elevator had to be trimmed upwards to push the tail down/nose up. Elevator for Aft CofG starts out trimmed down anyway, so you run out of deflection to recover from a spin, which will be flat because the aft CofG isn't weighing the nose down. Got it.
The Cessna sounds awful, did you have a parachute? I'm even more paranoid about weight and balance than I was now! Probably a good thing.