Can anyone recommend a way to buy bitcoins

First the standard statement that Bitcoins are probably the single most risky investment you can make right now and you should not spend any more than you can afford to lose.

The UK is admittedly one of the hardest places to buy bitcoins due to British banks being notoriously against working with BTC companies. Still it is far from impossible. That said, there are many options:

Probably the easiest to use is the recently launched circle.com which will allow you to buy small amounts with a credit card.

Next would be bittylicious.com and speedybitcoin.com, both of which allow you to use UK faster payments to buy bitcoins.

Finally (and by far the cheapest method) is to purchase direct from a bitcoin exchange such as bitstamp.net or kraken.com. These will require you to send money overseas using SEPA but they are the most fully featured and offer the lowest rates.

I have used all of the above, if you are buying small amounts to test the water use circle, if you are buying a larger amount use bitstamp or kraken.