Dick Strawbridge
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Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Francis "Dick" Strawbridge MBE (born September 3, 1959 in Burma), is a British engineer, television presenter and environmentalist. He is often referred to as "Colonel Dick".
The third of seven children, he was raised and educated in County Antrim, Northern Ireland (attending Ballyclare High School from 1971-76), and served in the Royal Corps of Signals for more than 20 years. He was awarded the MBE in 1993 for his distinguished service and left the Army in 2001.
He is best known to the general public as an engineering expert on such television programmes as Scrapheap Challenge (on which his team, Brothers In Arms, were series champions) and the six-part BBC2 series Crafty Tricks of War of which he was the main presenter. He is also the proud owner of a rather large and impressive moustache.
He also had a major role in the BBC's commemoration of the 60th anniversary of D-Day, and was the co-host and resident "boffin" on the 2005 game show, Geronimo!. He also appeared as a regular team captain in the US series, Junkyard Mega-Wars.
Dick and his family have filmed a series, It's Not Easy Being Green, in which they move to a new home in Cornwall and attempt to live as green a life as possible, using renewable energy and environmentally friendly resources. The first programme was shown on Tuesday, 28 March 2006, on BBC2. A new series started in Spring 2007 in a different format. Dick and his son, James, aid several members of the public in larger and smaller eco projects around the country.
He also starred in The Big Idea, in which he tested out amateur inventions, and featured in the short series The Re-Inventors, a series of five, hour-long programmes commissioned by the UK digital channel UKTV History and first broadcast through the week of 11 December 2006. Each episode features Strawbridge and his son James (a history student) and other assistants reconstructing an invention of historic significance, with only a limited budget (£500) and limited time (two days) and limited facilities (a specially constructed mobile workshop) to construct a modern version. They then try it out against the real thing. UKTV History also shows "Crafty Tricks Of War" from time to time.
Also in 2006, Strawbridge appeared as a one-off presenter on the BBC2 series Coast, examining the workings of the Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge, a role he revived in the 2007 version of coast, presenting a short part of the program on the failure of Exercise Tiger.
On February 21st 2008, Strawbridge cooked spotted Dick on Ready Steady Cook on BBC2.
Strawbridge currently presents Planet Mechanics on the National Geographic Channel. On June 5th 2008, it was announced that he would be returning to Scrapheap Challenge for its 11th series.[1]
[edit] References
- ^ 'Scrapheap Challenge' drops Llewellyn, Digital Spy, Thursday, June 5 2008
