Spent many Saturday afternoons as a kid 'planespooting' on the terraces at Manchester (late 70's/early 80's - Tridents, VC10's, DC8's etc.) - I was hooked although my only aspirations at the time were to be a passanger one day!
Then saw some light aircraft flying circuits at Barton as a teenager and realised that 'normal' people could fly too.
Bought the Thom books one by one over the years and studied them while playing on Flightsim.
Met my first real PPL a couple of years ago and decided that waiting until I could affort to learn would take too long, so got the credit limit raised on a couple of cards and went for it anyway. Should have done it years ago!