Mate,
I can, to an extent, understand your story, I got to the end of A-levels (year 12) and didnt know what to do.
I had family pushing me to the Army and RAF (Officer and Pilot) (12 years later I now know why). I also had a place to do Yacht and Power Craft design at Southampton and Oceanography at Plymouth but I didnt want to do any of those.
I grew up on a farm, loved sailing (did a couple of the RORC series) and was dead bored with schooling / education so I took a year out. i had a couple of lucky breaks that included fumbling around with aircraft in southern Africa, some sking in Canada and plenty more farm work, I deicided that I wanted to be a pilot type.
I had a bit of money behind me so that helped (earned myself) and so I pitched up at the local flying school and started.
After a bit, I wondered if I would enjoy flying all the time, but a couple of events happend, all of which I made happen, I had another lucky break and got involved with a heavy maintenance organisation. (privatly owned - mainly boeing narrow body)
I loved it, I got to go home every night, forged a relation ship with the people I worked with and for me (as a person) it was much better than being a pilot type.
After a year, I was asked to set up my own department and actully be involved as a person and contribute something.
If you spend enough time on PPRUNE (this is your first post so maybe not yet) you will see a fair few posts from poeple asking Q's about what it is like and so on. read the reponses. they are from people who are already doing it.
Now, you are possibly thinking "whats this guy going on about?" well, I am just telling a little bit about my story, and what worked for me, I too thought that a pilot was the best but I found heavy maintenance, if you really are that good a clever then maybe you might make it to working on the line, (ummm smell the jet fuel!).
There is a lot more to aviation that just being a pilot.
Also, in australia, the fighter pilots types only fly about 30hrs a year in the aircraft, the rest of the time is in other aircraft. Dunno abouthte UK but they are cutting another two squadrons? you want to be a part of that?
Hay Ewe, pass me a spanner