Hi Steve and welcome to the forum. I am from Kent and so not that far from you.
There are a growing number of fellow UK BBQ/smoking enthusiasts on the forum and we also have the benefit of the vast experience of our friends from the USA and elsewhere. The forum is all about sharing knowledge and experiences and although there is a lot of discussion about BBQ hot smoking here there are also a lot of other passions - like cold smoking and sous vide. You will also get a lot of good advice on food safety here. The forum follows the USDA guidelines, however they are very similar in most respects to the UK.
You will find that there are a lot of different smokers in use by members here and some do use the Bradley. I have used one a couple of times and it has worked well. Compared with other smokers it can work out a little more expensive to run as it uses proprietary wood chip biscuits to create the smoke, however this will probably not be an issue when using it for home use.
Have you thought about what you are looking to start smoking first? Hot or cold smoking? Large meat joints (ribs, pork, brisket etc), fish, cheese, sausage? Whatever you want to try just ask for advice and you will get the benefit of a lot of good experience in return. Just remember that although there are wrong ways to smoke there is no single right way. If you get 10 meat smokers in the same room you will get 10 different ways of producing the "perfect" result. Listen to what they are saying (their methods will be fairly similar) and choose the method that you think will work best for you. You will soon be making your own tweaks and have your own method.
When using the American recipes you also need to bear in mind that they tend to like foods a little sweeter and saltier than us and also when converting recipes the US pint is 20% smaller than the UK pint.
Good luck and don't be afraid to ask questions. The only dumb questions are the ones that don't get asked.
Wade