IT'S not hard to spot Lucinda Ledgerwood. Anyone who has watched the latest series of The Apprentice, which has made her a reluctant star, knows of her penchant for brightly coloured berets and pashminas.
So when a vision in a hot pink beret and cardigan thrown rather nonchalantly over her shoulders – with contrasting green suede LK Bennett shoes – appears in the furnishings department of John Lewis, there is no doubting her identity.
Certainly the
ladies who take morning coffee in the store's top floor cafe seem to recognise her, smiling broadly as she passes.
Ledgerwood smiles back. She seems in a particularly sunny mood – in direct contrast to her sometimes hangdog expression during the television battle to work for Sir Alan Sugar – but the 32-year-old insists this is what she's always like. Her vibrant clothes match her personality, it wasn't a ploy to stand out from the black-suited business crowd.
The strange world of The Apprentice, she says, made her retreat a little into herself, especially when it became clear from the off that most of the female competitors thought she was an easy target.
"When I walked across the bridge with my case, dressed in my purple and green, I saw everyone else in black suits and I thought 'no-one told me there was a uniform'. I could see them do a double-take," she laughs.
"Then when we were in the house the girls were all going off into groups and saying 'Lucinda come and join us' and I said 'no offence but I'd like to go outside and have a cigarette'. I didn't want to get involved in a clique but as a result I had no support from a group like some of the others did. Some of the boys also told me that the girls had said 'take Lucinda into the boardroom if you can'. It was pretty awful, really."
Warming to her theme, she says: "In fact, a lot of the behaviour was abhorrent. I've never thought you needed to dress like a man and be a bitch to be successful in business, but that's how many behaved. There was also deceit and underhandedness and lying. These were not qualities I had ever come across in my business career before."
Her soft tone never changes but she declares herself to be "still angry" about some of the events during the series, in particular the spat with Helene Speight over just who had been trained to use a computer during one task. "It'll take more than yoga to sort it out," she smiles.
By this time the beret and cardigan have been discarded to reveal a pink flower sweeping her blonde hair out of her eyes, and a tanned cleavage worthy of a Hollywood starlet. She's all too aware of that, though, and continually pulls at her dress to cover herself up.
She certainly looks very different from the initial publicity shot which was sent out when The Apprentice contenders were revealed. "God yes, that picture was particularly unflattering and made me look about 50 and I wondered if they'd done that deliberately to try and tell people to watch me because I would be grumpy."
She hadn't thought much about her appearance or how she would be portrayed on the show – mostly because she had never clapped eyes on any of the previous series.
"I didn't have a TV for five years so I'd never seen the show and I don't really read a lot of magazines," she says. "I'm more a Radio 4 listener. But I was convinced to enter by my colleagues and friends, or should that be ex-friends," she laughs.
"It was a strange process to get on in the first place. You were put through your paces with interviews and working in teams at tasks. I was very impressed with the production crew . . . although I wouldn't say the best candidates were chosen," she raises a wry eyebrow. "And the show itself was a shock, there was so much focus on personalities rather than pure business.
"Of course really you only get to see the worst bits, the parts where things are going wrong. But in terms of the way we were all portrayed I think overall the editing was quite fair. Some people were more desperate than others to win. I won't deceive and put down and denigrate anybody. If you have the skills, intelligence and confidence you don't need to do that."
What Lucinda – or Cindy as her friends know her – did do was prove herself a very capable team leader, a role which won round some of her detractors, who thought she was a poor team player.
But she also showed she wasn't cut out for sales and was at times too emotional. "I said that I liked to be in control, which was completely true. And yes I did cry a couple of times which surprised me, but I'm just human. The laundry task where I was harangued for 45 minutes by Jenny Celerier at 3am after a day of very hard work was just a bit too much. She's not on my Christmas list. People were scared of her.
"I think some of them didn't like me because I was always prepared to speak up when I thought things were going wrong. But I won eight out of the ten tasks – Lee (McQueen the eventual winner] only won seven, and hadn't won any until I was his team leader."
Given her clipped tones it's obvious that Lucinda is not a real Edinburgher, and certainly not a Leither where she lives in her newly extended colony home with her social worker flatmate.
Born in Singapore to a French/German father and English mother, she was brought back to the UK by her mum when she was very young and privately schooled.
Burger is her real surname but she has adopted her grandmother's name, and it has been reported that she has not seen either of her parents or her three brothers and sisters for years.
She has said her childhood was "strange" and that when she turned 30 decided it was "better not to have any contact with my family." She refuses to discuss it further, even refusing to confirm or deny if her family got in touch when The Apprentice was screened. "It's personal," she says, drawing a line under the discussion.
What she will say is that she studied neuroscience and psychology at Manchester and then went into the graduate training programme with Ernst & Young. "I worked in private banking in London for seven years and got to my mid-20s and wanted to break out of that. I went travelling for just over two years.
"I went to Australia and ran a backpackers' hostel with my boyfriend then we took a camper van round America. When we came back we didn't want to go to London. I'd been to Edinburgh years before to the Festival and loved it, so we thought we'd give it a go.
"I came up, got changed in Harvey Nichols' loos, went for an interview and got a job as a business consultant with Scottish Widows. My relationship didn't last, unfortunately, as he wanted to go back to Australia, but I fell in love with Edinburgh. That was four years ago."
Of course not having a TV proved a slight problem when the series began. "I had to borrow a neighbour's to watch the first show," she laughs.
"I had some friends round and it was horrific. I've got a TV now, though, my flatmate got a second-hand one from somewhere."
It seems odd that someone who claims to be earning £100,000 a year has old electrical goods rather than the latest plasma screen, but again Lucinda proves herself to be different from the rest of the Apprentice pack.
"Through luck and hard work I've earned a lot of money but that's helped me to travel and to take time out and do other things I'm interested in. I don't care about flash cars and expensive clothes."
So what now for the woman who made it to the final five against all odds? It certainly seems that we haven't seen the last of her.
"I've been in finance for nearly 12 years and I think I got as far as I wanted to go. I've always liked to change direction, try something different, it helps you build yourself emotionally and spiritually.
"I'm completing my Napier University degree in herbal medicine and I do want to move into media and presenting and the opportunity has presented itself to me.
"I was at Ascot last Friday with Clare Balding doing some presenting, asking older women about their outfits. I've also done some work with Maggie Philbin on BBC Berkshire Radio and again it was about clothes. It's such a laugh as I know nothing about fashion. I just wear what I like.
"But I truly believe in what's for you won't go past you, so I'm going to give it a go.
"The important thing though is that I'm comfortable with who I am and the principles and morals I have and I think I've proved it's unnecessary to be a bitch in business. I just want to have a career which makes me happy."
The full article contains 1570 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
