Biography

Richard Francis Strawbridge was born on 3rd September 1959. The third of seven children, he was raised and educated in County Antrim, N Ireland. He was interested from a very early age in 'taking things apart', but had a very poor reputation when it came to putting them back together again - almost always ending up with a little pile of 'left-over-bits'. However, as long as he could still get whatever unfortunate machine he was 'fixing' to work, and wherever brute-force would suffice, he remained undaunted.

Dick believed, and still believes today, that understanding how and why things work, is as important in it's own right as actually 'getting the thing to work’ (this is, at any rate, what he keeps telling his wife!).

In 1978 Dick joined the Army, and a few years later did a degree in Electrical Engineering. Over the next 20 years Dick rose from Troop Commander to Lieutenant Colonel, and enjoyed serving and playing rugby all over the world. He also enjoyed becoming a husband to Brigit, a father to James and Charlotte, and cleaning up after various dogs, cats, goats and chickens! (He would like to take this opportunity to apologise to any of his neighbours who might have been woken up at 4.00a.m by barking, meowing, bleating or cockle-doodle-doing.)

Dick was awarded the MBE in 1993.

Whilst he was still serving in the Army, Dick's family persuaded him to audition for C4's 'Scrapheap'. Thanks to his leadership abilities, personality and engineering skills,(and possibly because he had the biggest moustache the series producers had ever seen) Dick was successful, and was catapulted into the world of television as the 'Yellow Team Leader' for six episodes in the first ever series of 'Scrapheap'! He has to date appeared in 19 programmes of Scrapheap Challenge and Junkyard Wars, winning the Scrapheap Challenge trophy in series 3 with his two younger brothers David and Bobby as 'Brothers in Arms', and the Junkyard Megawars trophy in 2003.

After leaving the Army in 2001 Dick worked in industry for three years, as well as running leadership and teamwork courses, and lecturing in schools and colleges. He took a sabbatical to film the popular series 'Crafty Tricks of War', which he presented for BBC2. In this series, Dick celebrated British ingenuity and demonstrated his practical skills by reconstructing and testing some of the most unusual inventions of war. After filming Crafty Tricks, he also played a key part in the BBC presenting team covering the build up to, and celebration of, the 60th anniversary of D-Day.

When Dick was given the opportunity by the BBC to make another new series, 'Geronimo', he decided to concentrate his efforts on pursuing a career in television. In Geronimo, Dick again demonstrated his extensive technical knowledge, as he and his 'Crafty Tricks of War' buddy Diarmuid Byron O'Connor built some of the craziest machines seen on television, and then challenged the British public to see if they could beat them. Dick co-presented Geronimo with the lovely Fearne Cotton (TOTP & Smile).

In 2006 Dick had a busy year. He filmed a series with his family, Its 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. A second series started in spring 2007 in a different format. Dick and his son, James, aid several members of the public in larger and smaller ecology projects around the country.

He also starred in a short series, The Re-Inventors, with each episode featuring Strawbridge, his son James, and Jim Milner reconstructing an invention of historic significance, with only a limited budget (£500) and limited time of two days and limited facilities to construct a modern version and try it out against the real thing.

Also in 2006, Dick 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.

Dick was invited, with his son James, to cook on the February 21st 2008 edition of 'Ready Steady Cook’; he cooked spotted dick and won!

2008 saw Dick teaming up with Jem Stansfield to present Planet Mechanics on the National Geographic channel. The duo use their eco-engineering smarts on a mission to lower energy consumption. Across the series they build Britain's first street legal, air driven motorbike, a wood fuelled truck and power a farm using cow poo. Dick is currently filming the 11th series of Scrapheap Challenge, in which he presents and competes with his teammate, and good friend, Jim Milner and a guest contestant. The new Scrapheap challenge will be on air early next year. When he is not presenting, Dick lives on an idyllic smallholding in Cornwall where he runs courses on all aspects of green living. He writes, host conferences, gives talks on British innovation, leadership and teamwork, lectures at schools and colleges, and makes keynote and after dinner speeches.