The haulage industry is renowned for long hours. By Wednesday evening I could have worked 40 hours already, and the planning office still tried to squeeze even more work out of you. A poor company, who I worked for, would try and make you work the absolute maximum time you could do, every week, and simply claim "it's just the way the job is". As a tramper (going away Monday morning, and not getting back to base until Friday evening, spending every night in the truck), my duty time tended to be around 65 hours per week, every week.
Anyhow James, was it worth it? I don't know yet, I used lorry driving to part-fund an integrated course, but I start in a few weeks. I'll be able to tell you in a couple of years time!
The same for the second question, I'll have to see you on the other side for that one!
In general, there's no easy option for funding, unless you or your family are loaded, and or willing to help you out. Everyone's situation is different, some requiring much harder work than others to get to where they want to be. Having spoken to a few integrated trainees, some of them went for a 50/50 loan to cash method, getting half of the money from savings, parents, working, etc, and the other half from the pilot training loans. The modular trainees I've spoken to tended to do what's being done my most here, grafting and doing bits at a time. There was one lad who was doing a full-time ab-initio residential modular course back-to-back at Stapleford, but his parents were paying for that.