Well, I can recommend the Voltcraft VC-820/840 DMM, available from www.conrad.com. These have pretty much identical specs, are reliable, and most importantly, are rather cheaper than the maplin one. The 840 has in addition to the normal V/I/R etc measurements, temperature and true RMS measurement. They both have serial ports for linking to a PC. The 820 is currently listed at about 50 euros, the 840 at 77 euros.

They also do quite a nice soldering system, the LA50 digital soldering station, for 75 euros, which I would say is superior to the maplin one. Whatever you get, buy spare tips at the same time.

I would suggest that you get 'savbit' solder, which has a small amount of copper in the mix. This protects the iron tip from erosion to a considerable degree and also improves the wettability of whatever you're soldering, which may be important with old, oxidised joints. Get something around 1-1.5mm diameter for through-hole work, perhaps 0.5mm for SMT work. DO NOT use any acid-flux-cored solder on electronics work! It's not likely that you would, but I have seen it happen and the results are not pretty.

Get a flux pen, such as this, and use it liberally when soldering. It will make an enormous difference. Also, use solder braid to remove old solder. It works much better than a desolder pump.

For cleaning the PCBs, I would suggest vacuuming out the crud that will almost certainly have accumulated on them, then using isopropanol and a toothbrush. Rinse with hot water, shake off as much as possible, dab off the remainder with paper towel, and place the PCB somewhere warm to dry for a few hours. Try not to immerse electromechanical components such as relays, solenoids, or switches in either the IPA or water. Don't worry about the water on the electronics, as long as there is no power and the water is clean, no harm will occur. (electronics don't mind water as long as you dry it off fairly quickly, but really don't like soft drinks! If you spill something on a PC keyboard, the best thing to do is spray it thoroughly with warm water in a shower, possibly with a little washing up liquid, then hang it up to dry for a day or so. Usually this fixes them quite nicely)

I would avoid compressed air unless you have some experience, it's quite possible to blow surface mount chips clean off the PCB if you get the pressure wrong (trust me on this )

pca