I'm British, and reside in the West Country - the heart of British cider production.
Strongbow is a bad commercial cider, almost certainly fortified with sugar to keep it cheap for the brewery, and force carbonated. It's not really cider.
Real English cider comes in a wide variety of forms, but tends to fall into the 6-7.5% ABV range as it's the natural extent to which the sugars in cider apples will ferment. There are lighter ciders out there, but they tend not to have been made with cider apples. In making your own, you have two choices - either use apples that will give you a juice with the OG you want, or use others and add a sugar syrup to the secondary fermenter. The second is cheating somewhat, but will still yield good results. You also have a choice with yeasts - use the natural yeast or pitch a commercial yeast. The natural yeast will almost always give a better flavor profile as it has adapted to the specific apples uses, but it might not be there in sufficient quantity to get going. My advice would be to aim to use natural yeast, but if nothing is happening by day 3 to pitch a commercial cider yeast.