When almost all light trainers were tail wheel airplanes the time to solo and time to PPL completion was no different than today with nose wheel airplanes, except the time for the PPL was 30 hours v.s. 45 hours today.
Like many other pilots who learned to fly then I received my PPL in the 30 hour minimum required.
Oh......the airport I learned to fly on had two paved runways and a tower.