Welding Courses

[Dead Eye]

So I like the idea of learning to weld as I feel like its the next step in my progress of working on cars and bikes. I'd like to do a simple course which introduces welding and gives me an idea of how to do it but unfortunately it seems like these things just don't exist anymore The main stuff available is full time courses and education colleges which last for 9 months and cost a fortune, but you get a certification which I don't need

I'm curious if any of the foccers local to the likes of Hertfordshire have any experience of any night classes that are hidden away from the mighty Google.

Based on a few old forum threads I've run in to this is what I want to do;
Work with steel / stainless steel and potentially aluminium
Small work, nothing too crazy and not likely to be particularly often unless I sink my teeth in to a large project
Primarily working on cars I expect - so seals, custom brackets, exhaust work etc

Figure that I may just end up practising some basic stick welding and try not to set fire to anything - just learn from making all the mistakes possible haha. The other option for me I think would be MIG but the setup costs are somewhat more prohibitive it seems...

Advice is welcome