basically the reason this was in the paper/discussed on the radio is because 90% of the british public have absolutely no idea how to actually get to the RHS of an airliner. it just seems strange to a lot of us because we know that this scenario is highly achievable given the right circumstances.
im about to start at oat and with any luck and a lot of hard work i'll finish 4 days before my 21st birthday and it would have been a year sooner if i hadnt decided to sort out my a level results and get some money together...but i can guarantee if i'd had the money to do some more flying when i was younger i would have worked my arse off to qualify as soon as humanly possible and im sure im not alone in that. as it happened i had to scrape around for all the free flying i could get in the ccf.
at the end of the day you play the hand you're dealt, and well done to this guy and ANYBODY ELSE who sets out what they want to achieve and does it with the resources available to them.
as for young pilots in general, i think theres a lot more nowadays pursuing it instead of university simply because of the rising costs of a uni education - if you're forced to choose, uni is 3/4 years - flying is for the rest of your working life (fingers crossed).