Richard C Humphries.

My interest in things diy and mechanical started at an early age thanks to spending many an hour with my maternal grandfather ‘Tinny’ in his shed. All those years ago, the technology wasn’t in everything like it is today, but I’m sure Tinny would embrace it where it is needed, but I do know that he wouldn’t agree with it being in everything.

Like many youngsters, I used to take things apart and hopefully managed to put them back together again and it would still work as designed (or better I would have hoped).

I first got into computers in the early 80s, with a Sinclair ZX80 and an Acorn Atom (look them up if you haven’t heard of them) and since the mid-1990s have been building and repairing (as well as swearing at) PCs as part of my daily life.

As far as cars are concerned, I have spent many hours repairing the cheap bangers that were all I could afford when I started to drive. I’ve rebuilt engines, completely rewired and even built a couple of kit cars.

Today, cars are a mixture of mechanical and computers, so are the best of both worlds for me. Having said that, without the correct equipment, it can very hard to diagnose what is actually wrong with today’s cars.