Thank you all for your helpful responses and advice.
puntosaurus: One of the things I was planning on doing was getting a Class 1 medical before investing in flight time to check there isn't anything untoward under my bonnet, so thanks for reaffirming that plan.
ec155mech: I'm in north London if that helps narrow things down. I also noticed you were based in Brighton? (I lived there for many years before moving up here!). I've always been into aviation but got my rotary bug when wife got me one of those helicopter experience packages from Shoreham airport and I had an opportunity to fly a little.
Hughes500: Thanks, I will look them up. I don't suppose you fly an MD500...?
I forgot to mention in my OP that I'm 36
and hoping this isn't too late to start my journey! (I suppose thats a different conversation / debate altogether). If any of you have started late in your lives, please feel free to comment on how you managed to juggle it all!
How likely can one start building hours by going down the route of being an instructor?
Obviously one would need hours to get a job, but kinda need the job to get the hours - how do you guys plan this from the perspective that operators use different aircraft (and therefore if you log many hours in aircraft X, but a job opportunity comes up where they use aircraft Y, your hours don't exactly "qualify") etc? Hope I'm making sense here...
Thanks again!