I self taught through Youtube and various sites. I'm certainly not pro, but have a real flair for it. I also tend to improvise by using things in my kitchen as opposed to buying all the tools. It's an expensive hobby, but once you've got the stuff, it costs very little to keep going. Check out this site, it's american but you get lots of UK folk on it too, it's an absolute mine of info.
http://cakecentral.com/ - if you start doing cakes/models for people, be careful not to fall in the trap of undercharging, it's very hard to get out of it!! Enjoy