Quotes from Dick Strawbridge

I could never work out how to shave my top lip without cutting myself.

We forget the importance of engineering, but it's been used to design everything from St. Paul's Cathedral to The Shard.

Nature is so phenomenal.

With a little bit of common sense, anything is achievable.

For a nation that spends a lot of time talking about the weather, we don't seem to realise just how much sunshine we actually get. Maybe that's because we tend to concentrate on the negative aspects.

Although I am the oldest with the biggest moustache, my brothers are progressively taller; I put it down to the extra potatoes they were able to eat after I left home.

I was quite capable at school, but I spent a lot of time in detention.

As one of seven children, our family life was full of energy and fun - we all knew how to laugh and work hard.

I've spent 20 years in the Army, and I'm just so fiercely proud of being British.

For me, London seemed to be frantic without going anywhere.

My body was built through years of good food - and beer.

I was still a serving officer when I competed in 'Scrapheap Challenge,' initially as a major and then a lieutenant-colonel when I was joined by my brothers in a team called 'Brothers in Arms.'

Who doesn't like playing with a railway? I think we've all got Thomas the Tank Engine in our blood.

There was always laughter in our house. And I have great memories of my dad making an Ulster fry on a Saturday morning. They were legendary even though he couldn't really cook.

My daughter, Charlotte Strawbridge, has recorded an album, and my favourite song from that is 'Empires Made Of Sand.'

When you work with people, you buy into it, you work together and you pull together. It doesn't matter what your challenge is: there's a sense of achievement at the end of it.

I had an idyllic childhood with the freedom to go and play.

I was captain of the rugby side at Shrivenham - as were my two brothers after me.

I'm a very simple person.

I just think our British cuisine and the different influences we pull together make it special when it comes to food.

Cooking is about ingredients.

All insulation is environmentally friendly. Some installation has better environmental credentials, but what matters is the energy it saves.

All insulation takes energy to make it, but that is not a reason not to invest in it. The savings, for both the planet and the bank account, can be impressive.

When I joined the Army in the late '70s, there was a real threat from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, so all of the '80s, I was engaged in what could be classed as conventional operations - that involved digging lots of trenches in Germany.