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Don't live near you but here are the basics, I'm assuming you know nothing about campervans, apologies if you do.

You have 3 sorces of power

12v from leisure and engine battery

240v from hookup cable when plugged into site supply

Gas propane or butane bottle for cooking and running fridge,

If you have a built in fridge it is probably a 3 way (but may not be) which means is can run on either 12v, 240v or gas.

You can only run fridge on 12v  when driving as it runs off the engine battery /(will drain a leisure battery too quickly), put switch to 12v and once on site with hookup, change to 240v, if you don't have hookup you can run it on gas on site, you will need to ignite a burner which can be tricky if its not been used for a while. There will be a switch on the fridge to move from each type of power.

You will also (probably) have some lights which run from 12v (leisure battery) or 240v mains.

Depending on the vehicle there may be a control panel which shows how charged the batteries are and how full your water tanks are, but in an older van this could be basic and not have all the features I've mentioned.

If the vehicle hasn't been used for a while it may be worth getting a habitation check, to make sure the gas and electrics are safe. The connection from the regulator to the gas bottle is usually rubber and can perish/split, so may need renewing.

This is the hookup lead you need

http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/mains-lead-25m-p155388

Hope that helps

jules

...just to add(and sorry if this sounds TOO obvious but people have asked the question about this before ),it does need pluggin' in for any 240v "mains" powered stuff to work(socket oulets,water heater etc).They don't work off the batteries and/or with the engine running....

We had an '03 Duetto(our first van) and I sometimes wish we had kept it..but as it was probably a different model (and it was 5+ years ago now!)I don't want to give you incorrect/confusing info' concerning which switch does what..

(.although I do recall that our "mains" water heater switch was hidden away, tucked at the back of the cupboard under the cooker!...it wasn't long before I re-routed it and positioned on the face of the settee base)..

Once you start working through it methodically...it's all pretty straight forward.

(..and as daft as it sounds,as you go through it, write stuff down and maybe label the switches,until you are more familiar with what they do...) 

Ours did come with the original "hand book" but to be honest it was all but useless for us "first timers"...as it was poorly photocopied, incorrectly indexed, and seem to cover so many different switches and appliances that differed from ours, that it just confused us even more..

Although not model specific,this book by John Wickersham is supposed to be worth owning:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Motorcaravan-Manual-Choosing-Using-Maintaining/dp/0857331248/ref=pd_sim_sbs_b_2