Hi Hugo,
Welcome to the forum.
If you find another B system player in Scotland he'll likely either be a Norwegian, Belgian, Dutchman, or Russian on holiday!
Like you, I had played guitar for about 20 years before I started on C system CBA. No teachers within a reasonable distance meant buy the books and learn yourself, and there was nothing like You Tube where you could learn by watching. I haven't the first clue about Scottish accordion as it never quite captured my interest. There were some CBA players around the western, (and later central part) of Scotland where I then lived, but I wouldn't have said "a lot".
Only B system teacher I knew in the whole of the UK at the time I started (about 1985) was John Leslie who ran the shop "Accordions of London". I actually considered changing over to B system after I realised that most of the French and Belgian musette players I liked played that system. However, finding a suitable instrument anywhere in the UK at that time was just about impossible before the internet opened up potential sources, so I stuck with C system.
Self taught was more like "self fought" and I found it a struggle. Problem I had was trying to force myself to slow down in the learning process. I wanted to be as good on the accordion as I was on the guitar almost right away, if "good" was the right word. Every time I picked the box up I resolved to follow the exercises in the books to the word. However, having a modicum of musical experience, I started to "invent" wee tunes that fell naturally to where my fingers wanted to go rather than where they should have been, and unfortunately I never really broke that habit. I managed to "nail" a handful of French musette standards, and 30 odd years later that's about where I still am. I can't cope with large audiences so I have to sometimes turf the two cats out of the bedroom so I can play in peace. My wife won't stay in the same floor of the house as me while I'm playing, and my neighbours have only threated to burn my accordions and/or break my fingers on relatively few occasions.
Bayan conveys to me "serious study" of classical type music, which is way beyond my experience. As far as I know there are two or three other forum members who play bayans, although at least one of them plays a C system bayan he had built in Russia to that system. You may get a somewhat more sensible conversation out of them.
I'm sure that, regardless of your choice of instrument and/or musical preferences, you'll find plenty of interesting topics on here.
