Hi Alistair..These are BSA 'combination' levers. They were fitted to prewar BSAs, early WD M20s and some early post war bikes.
The long lever you mentioned is in fact the valve lifter lever...the advance/retard lever being a completely seperate lever.
These levers also feature a spring loaded ratchet, front brake locking mechanism. It may well be that this was to lock the brake on sidecar equipped machines and could be the reason for the 'combination lever' name....Ian