Don't get me wrong. I love ham radio and without it Imay never have gotten into hifi as much as I have.
I had an 'elmer' as you call them that I met once I had gotten my licence and he taught me a great deal about tubes and diy techniques and I almost certainly got my love of olde worlde equipment from him.
Unfortunately, because of work commitments and ghost complaints about RFI I gave it up. It wasn't worth the hassle to me to get thumped in the street on my return from a 14hr night shift.
I did intend getting back into in 2001 and studied hard to pass the morse test. It was actually more fun second time around and less like having teeth pulled.
As far as radio goes these days in the UK. I guess it's pretty much the same as the rest of the world. We have a novice licence that only requires the licence holder to sit an extremely rudimentary test. Grade school stuff where they make a circuit with a light bulb, a battery, assorted lengths of wire and drawing pins on a board.... etc, you know the drill. Even for the HF, all of the licence grades have access to it now and there is no requirement for a morse test. You can sit one if you want but it doesn't make you anymore proficient and you don't gain anything by it other than a sense of pride. I used to love 2m and 70cm but they are almost dead these days (my 2m set is now tuned to the Marine band) - i just had a tune around and there wasn't a signgle carrier anywhere.
One thing I have noticed, with the relaxation of the licensing a lot of ex-CBers (who could never pass the RAE before) are now on the bands and it's degenerating into the free-for-all that CB was with bad language now commonplace. At least when it used by people who studied for their licences it was a very gentlemanly place and was self policing.
The Radiocommunications Agency now class Amateur Radio as 'Hobby Radio' along with CB. With that in mind, they are seriously considering deregulating the bands and making a licence available to all without any examinations etc. for a five year period that can be purchased at the local post office. If that happens then any credibility that Ham Radio had/still has will go straight down the pan.
I'm glad that I got my licence when it was still worth something.
Over the years I've worked 150+ countries on HF, worked multiple satellites, had a packet radio BBS, worked SSTV, FSTV on the u-wave bands, DIY'd some amazing amplifiers and antennas and generallyt had a blast but i've moved on now.