It's easy to spot Lucinda Ledgerwood among the crowd of business types in
Clerkenwell's fashionable Zetter hotel in East London. A vision of bold
stripes in a sea of grey suits, she is sporting poppy-red patent shoes, a
short cream skirt with wide pink belt, and a lollipop-pink beret perched
jauntily on her blonde hair.
We wouldn't expect anything less from the 32-year-old who made it to the last
five on BBC One's The Apprentice before Sir Alan Sugar fired her for being
“a little too zany for me”. He was probably referring to Lucinda's penchant
for more alternative interests such as aromatherapy and herbal medicine; not
an area you can imagine him having much time for in the cut and thrust world
of his business empire.
“I don't think he was biased,” she says in that memorably breathy, clipped
tone. “But the editors really loved any opportunity to say ‘Lucinda, a risk
analyst who studied aromatherapy'. They really liked that contrast.” She
rolls her eyes heavenwards. They also liked the idea that she was a posh
girl, calling her Lucinda rather than Cindy, her real-life moniker.
Shrewd business operator or eccentric?
These contradictions came to dog Lucinda - or Cindy - during her 11-week stint
on the programme. No one could quite place her, which made for intriguing
viewing. Was she the shrewd, well-bred business operator who could manage
her team brilliantly or, beneath it all, a bit too eccentric and
unpredictable?
“I was very different from the others. I'm certainly not your average bod,”
she says, sipping her camomile tea. “Although, in terms of business, I was
the most successful candidate. I won eight out of ten tasks, which was more
than anyone else.”
Lucinda is here to talk about her plans for the future; in particular how she
hopes to pursue a full-time career in herbal medicine. It rapidly becomes
clear that she doesn't want to be pigeonholed as the flaky girl from The
Apprentice who dabbles in herbs; she has bigger plans than that. “We need to
get away from the idea that herbal medicine is for middle-class hippy
chicks,” she says crisply, in full presentation mode. “You're treating
people and dealing with their health, so it is important to be logical and
straightforward.”
Now studying herbal medicine part-time at Napier University in Edinburgh, she
wants to make documentaries about her subject or to become involved in
regulation. “There are many, many dodgy aspects of herbal medicine, don't
get me wrong,” she says. “It does need to be more regulated, especially if
you're looking at transport and where the herbs have been grown - whether
they've been exposed to pesticides, for instance. There are huge debates on
each side.”
Her passion for alternative treatments is a deeply personal one too. “I've
worked with herbs since I was small,” she says. “My granny would take me out
looking for herbs and we'd often pick elderberries to make champagne.”
Lucinda was extremely close to her grandmother and uses her surname instead
of Burger, the one that she was born with. “She was from Yorkshire, a very
dominant, astute and witty lady. She was the last person you'd expect to see
picking herbs and mushrooms.”
Health problems dogged her teenage years
When Lucinda was halfway through her first degree course at Manchester
University (she studied neuroscience and psychology), doctors discovered
that her grandmother had motor neurone disease, a neurological disorder that
causes progressive weakness of many of the muscles in the body.
“The worst was the pain and suffering; watching someone you love gradually
lose the ability to speak or feed themselves, but still the brain is
active,” says Lucinda. “No one really knows the root of the disease
but I do believe, undoubtedly, there could have been herbs which may have
eased her passage through it.”
Her own life hasn't been problem-free on the health front either. In her early
twenties, polycystic ovaries and endometriosis were diagnosed. “I had
painful symptoms from 13 or 14. When I was 17 a doctor told me that one way
to resolve it was to get pregnant. Another gave me painkillers, which did
kill the pain but left me in a zombie state.”
Finally, she had treatment that included bi-monthly oestrogen injections to
stop her ovulating for six months, so inducing a temporary menopause. “It
was horrendous,” she recalls. “I had night sweats...every menopause symptom
there is.” As she says, that's the last thing a 24-year-old business
consultant expects.
Did she worry about her fertility? “No. The doctors told me that I can still
have children. But looking it up in books since, there are so many different
ways to treat it and I do feel that my treatment should have been a last
resort.” Impressively well equipped to make such a diagnosis, Lucinda
still reads around both subjects of her Manchester degree. For part of her
work, she had to dissect brains, something that fascinated her. “I loved
learning about the brain and how it worked. I really did develop a respect
for this grey globule once you realised what it does and can do.” As she
enthuses authoritatively about her interest in cognitive behaviour,
neurolinguistic programming and BSE (“mad cow” disease), you begin to wonder
how she stumbled into The Apprentice in the first place. Really, you feel,
she could be in a laboratory somewhere, studying neurones.
She didn't own a television for five years
She sounds quite surprised herself; she had never watched The Apprentice until
friends encouraged her to apply. In fact, she didn't own a television. “I
hadn't bothered with it for five years. I found other things to do such as
making jam, wine and listening to the radio.”
No wonder her team-mates didn't know what to make of her. On the one hand, she
had a track record in business with a salary that exceeded the £100,000 pay
packet that they were all so desperate to win. So far, so Apprentice.
But then there was the other stuff. The bright berets and pashminas, the
unpredictable outbursts at Lee and Alex, fellow hopefuls. For some reason
she rubbed people up the wrong way. Helene Speight, one of the final four,
wasn't keen; another contestant called her a “fungus”, and one of Sir Alan's
sidekicks said that she'd drive the boss mad within 30 minutes.
So why all that antipathy? “I spoke up and the others were less willing to do
that,” she says. “Their tactic was to keep quiet and, if they saw something
go wrong, pipe up in the boardroom. They also wondered what I was doing
there. Because I had a well-paid job, they presumed I didn't really need
one. I didn't disclose anything but they found out.”
They found out, too, that she could be difficult to work with in a team,
unless she was leading, which makes you wonder if she is more controlling
than she likes to let on. She admits that she is much happier being in
charge than not. “I would say, yes, absolutely - I'd prefer to manage. I
think others would agree with that.”
That control extends to how she “manages” her past too. At 30, she chose not
to speak to her family any more. She is impressively determined not to
divulge any details, although she tells me that her father is a businessman
who lives in Indonesia and that her mother is English. “We moved around a
lot as children (she has three brothers and sisters) and lived in
Goring-on-Thames and then Singapore.”
The shutters come down when you try to find out why she no longer talks to
them. Does she feel the clean break has helped her psychologically? “You
learn from your experiences”, she says slowly and carefully. “From what I've
seen, not only from childhood but also around me, you need to ensure that
certain behaviour doesn't happen again and try to move on from that.”
She has a fiercely strong belief in the need to be principled, honest and
self-reliant. “I enjoy pushing people forward and supporting them. At no
time would I want to stoop to degrade anyone. I do speak up and react, which
is why I do well in business.”
Yet for someone so interested in psychology, does she really believe that
cutting herself from her past to start again is emotionally beneficial in
the long run? “It's not necessarily about starting again but I have got
confidence in myself,” she says. “I'm not about my childhood. Or my
upbringing and what happened. This is me now. It's very important that you
don't look back with regret and point fingers.” She much prefers to look
forward.
“I have goals and I'll get there”
She is enjoying living between Edinburgh and London, being single and
independent. “I don't have a long-term boyfriend but that would be a
wonderful thing,” she laughs. “You can't force these things.” Meantime,
she's focusing full-time on her herbal empire. “I always have a good mind of
what I'd like to do. I have goals and I'll get there,” she says, fixing me
with her steely, pale blue eyes. For a moment I wonder if Sir Alan made the
right decision.
