As a teenage air cadet in the 1970's in northern Scotland, I learned to fly in open cockpit gliders and effectively went from scratch to first solo flights in a long weekend (January!) - within a few hours...

This seems familiar - I remember flying with mitten gloves (due to cold!), controls were joystick, rudder, flaps, and an altimeter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slingsby_T.21