Thank you all for the info.
So, 700/750hrs total time and you skip the IR ground school and just turn up for the written exams. Not only that, but the writtens were not as big back then, I gather.
What an amazing concession!
the old brigade of Hamble-trained pilots frowned upon the self-improvers as unprofessional, second-rate or whatever
Nothing changes. It's human nature that once you have reached a certain standard (let's forget for now whether the route to it was of appropriate difficulty or not) "you" don't want to make it easy for others to reach the same standard.