I went through Hamble in the mid 60s on one of the early 18 month courses prior to that the course had been 2 years. Also at the time they ran a 1 year course for university graduates. 38 started the course 21 graduated
After graduation from Hamble I joined BEA and did a conversion onto my first type with the usual chalk and talk technical course. (not many teaching aids and no procedure trainer) A full ARB written exam followed.
The simulator course was 60 hours followed by 10hrs of aircraft time involving upper air work ( stalling, high speed run, relighting and dutch rolling) and circuit bashing (all engines engine out in day and night and flapless landings) Then 40 sectors of line training.