Baz,
after re-reading the thread and thinking about the whole issue, maybe the following would assist you in your endeavours;
Research the credit union movement in your area. Credit unions will grant loans to suitable people who can demonstrate that they have the ability to save regularly. If you could open an account and put a sum in, lets say £500, and then demonstrate a pattern of WEEKLY saving for the next 6 mts of say £30 per week..... no missing a week, must be lodged each week. At the end of the 6 months you should be able to borrow a bit over £3500, and your re-payments would be less than the £30 per week you were saving anyway.
Credit unions will loan up to 3x times your savings so the initial £500+26 weeks @ £30 p/w= £1280, therefore £1280x3= £3840.
You can also top up this loan after a time has elapsed, so if you find after 1 year that you need say £1000 to keep the PPL going you should be able to get it, that is of course if you make all the repayments on schedule and have missed none.
I dont know if this helps, but it may be a way to finance your PPL if you cannot allocate finances towards it right away. It is a loan you will be taking out, but it will discipline you in your endeavours, and another thing, dont go out and try and fly 5 hours a week, take your time, lodge the money into a dedicated "flying" account and use it for nothing else, this will have 2 benefits, firstly it allows you time to do the PPL and not to use all the money in a short time frame and have no flying for months while you re-pay the loan, and secondly if you take 18 mts or so to do the PPL and need a bit of extra cash after a year then you should have access to it.
Also save your dough and forget about things like Ray-bans, Bose headsets, stopwatches, flight gizmos, GPS, and all the assorted crap that students seem to want... YOU DONT NEED IT..... yet.
Regards,
Jon