What You See Is What You Get: My Autobiography (97 page)

Eventually, in that first series, the very worthy winner was Tim Campbell, after a closely run final with Saira Khan. Tim came to work at Brentwood and got on very well with the staff. He was given a new project to head up, an electronic face-care system, and he worked with the engineers to develop both the product and a website to host the sales.

I have to say that it was time-consuming and gruelling filming the show. Occasionally it involved working over weekends, which was sometimes inconvenient to family life. Little did Nick, Margaret and I know at the time how popular the programme would become. Once the filming was over, we all went our separate ways and got on with our own business. I was invited to the editing suite from time to time to see rough cuts of sections of the programmes. It wasn't until I saw the footage of the candidates running round in the streets and in offices and shops did I actually realise what they'd been up to. I was comforted in most cases that the decisions and criticisms I'd made, somewhat blindly, were borne out by what had actually gone on.

I was very impressed when I first saw the opening title sequence of the programme, showing the sweeping views of London and the Thames, together with the very distinctive music. It was all very exciting stuff. I was told I hadn't seen
anything
yet, as none of it had been polished. They had hired helicopters to film London, as well as film crews to capture the candidates driving around in the vans and me riding along in my car.

I was getting an understanding of how a programme is produced. In the case of
The Apprentice,
each one-hour programme has been edited down from over a hundred hours of filming, as the teams go off to separate locations and sometimes split into sub-teams, each with separate crews filming them. Then there's the film of the candidates in the house and the boardroom. There can be up to four sets of crew following them around and six cameras in the boardroom. From that mountain of material, the editors have to make the programme. It was a new world I was experiencing and it was fascinating to watch these talented people cutting and pasting the raw footage to create a one-hour, feature-packed show.

As time went on, I started to see some of the finished films and they were excellent. Peter Moore wouldn't give me copies of them. I think he was worried I might show them to somebody and breach the contract Talkback had with the BBC. He needn't have worried - I just wanted to keep them for myself. In fairness, I guess he'd only known me for a few months and wasn't aware of my professionalism. On one occasion, I told Peter that Ann, whom
he'd met a few times, was at home in bed ill and I wanted to show her one of the first episodes. He finally let me have a tape to take home.

Peter had a bit of a fiery temper and we had a couple of rows. He was one of those temperamental people you'd expect to find in the media industry, the sort who would have a tantrum and walk off the set, so to speak. These artistic people are a bit funny in that way. They're a completely different bunch of people to those I'd come across in business, very touchy and sensitive about their artistic genius.

I wasn't poking my nose into their business - I wouldn't have had a clue what to do with respect to filming and editing - but I used to get very frustrated waiting for the cameras and lighting to be set up. It was all very time-consuming and I would sometimes lose my rag and come out with some verbal tirade. By the back end of the filming, being a quick learner, I was seeing stuff go on which was grossly inefficient and it was winding me up. On one occasion, I think it was while filming the penultimate show, Peter came storming into the boardroom, ranting and raving at me about my objections. I stood up and told him to fuck off, and he could take his fucking TV show and stick it up his arse. I shut the book I had in front of me on the table and walked out, saying, 'I'm going home. That's it. It's over.'

Peter might have got away with losing his rag on shows he'd done in the past, but he'd dropped a real bollock this time. His temper could have cost his company millions of pounds. If I'd walked off, they'd have had no show! At that time, they only had ten shows recorded. He'd have had to explain to his bosses what had gone wrong, and they'd have had to explain it to the BBC. I don't think he'd expected me to react the way I did, but he'd picked a bad time to start on me, as there were some family problems playing on my mind. Also, it was a Sunday and I was supposed to be at a family event, so I was in a foul mood anyway.

After I'd walked off, Nick told me to calm down. He said he understood how frustrated I was, but reminded me of all the work we'd put in up to now and said it would be unprofessional and uncharacteristic of me to storm off. While I was talking to Nick outside the boardroom, James, the senior cameraman, came up and asked me whether I wanted a cup of coffee and to take a break for a few moments. He had a look on his face as if to say, 'I don't blame you for walking off, but all our jobs are on the line here and we'd like you to stay.' Not that he actually said anything - it was just his body language.

Nick and Margaret calmed me down and I went back into the boardroom and finished off the show, but I went home fuming. I phoned Peter the following morning and told him I was a professional and that if I was committed
to do something, then I would do it, but I wasn't going to put up with any more of his bloody nonsense. I guess if you asked him for
his
take on that phone call, he'd say that that's what
he
said to
me.
I think it reasonable to say we agreed to disagree.

The BBC didn't have a clue how popular the programme would become. There was no formal press conference, which they'd normally have before launching a new programme. It just went out, with no fanfare, for the first time in February 2005, while I was away on holiday, skiing in Courchevel.

When the kids were younger, I'd always promised to take them skiing, but I never had and they never stopped reminding me! One day, talking to Daniel, we discussed going skiing - boys only - me, Simon, Daniel and the elder grandchildren, as well as my son-in-law Mark. By then, Daniel had had a second son, Jake, who was obviously too young to come with us. Michaela was laughing at the thought of how Daniel would cope with their son Alex, now five years old, on his own. By then, Louise and Mark had had Joe, their first child, who was also too young to come.

Daniel found a fantastic chalet in Courchevel with all mod-cons, including satellite TV. The problem was, it didn't have a BSkyB receiver. Luckily, we found this out before we went, so I brought one along to plug into the satellite dish. This meant we could watch the first episode of
The Apprentice
live. Daniel knew a few other English people there at the time, so we invited them round to watch it. I'd seen the final cut already, but it was interesting to watch my family's and the guests' reactions. They were glued to the TV, asking me what would happen next. The format was new, so they had no idea, having just seen me for a short time at the beginning of the show, when I would come back into play. They certainly got it when we reached the boardroom scenes.

Ann was at home, as were Louise and Michaela. The show first aired at 9 p.m. on a Wednesday night on BBC2. As soon as it was over, my mobile started ringing. Jeremy Beadle was on the line, telling me the BBC had a massive hit on its hands and how fantastic the show was. A few minutes later, Bill Kenwright, the Everton chairman, called me saying the same thing.

My brother Derek phoned, telling me he was so surprised - he'd known I was doing a television show, but hadn't realised it was going to be anything like this. Ann called me to say that Daphne had phoned her while the show was on, around the time I was telling the candidates, 'I don't like bullshitters . . .' and she'd said to Daphne, 'You haven't seen anything yet. Call back at the end - let me watch the programme.'

They were all tremendously excited, as one would expect from the family when you're on telly. However, in TV terms, the way they gauge success is the
viewing figures. Next day, I called Peter Moore and asked him what he thought. He wasn't exactly jumping up and down. He told me it had achieved something like 1.9 million viewers and I detected a tone of disappointment, as if that wasn't good enough. I, of course, couldn't put this in context - I didn't know whether 1.9 million viewers was good or bad. Whatever, Peter didn't seem to think it had set the world alight. The second week's viewing figures went down to something like 1.8 million, but then word must have started getting around, as numbers started to grow and reached around 3.5 million, which I was told was
brilliant
for BBC2.

As the popularity of the programme grew, it was quite interesting to watch the reaction of people when they saw me in the streets. Up till then, I'd been recognised a fair bit because of my involvement in football, with such welcoming greetings as, 'All right, Alan, how's that bleedin' team of yours?' stretching to, 'Oi, Sugar, get your fucking chequebook out, you prick!' All that type of stuff, if you know what I mean. Now people would come up to me, tell me how good the show was, shake my hand and be very polite. Of course you
did
get the odd person who'd make an idiot of themselves by saying, 'You're fired!' and then laughing hysterically while everyone else looked at him as if he was a prat.

I was particularly encouraged to see that many teenagers were inspired by the show. It seemed that everywhere I went I was asked by this young audience to have photos taken with them or sign autographs. I also started to get lots of letters from young people telling me about their business ideas. It was comforting that one of my objectives was bearing fruit.

One of the funny things was the number of women in their forties and fifties who would come over to me and compliment me on the show. It was particularly amusing when they were accompanied by their husbands, who would kind of loiter with false smiles, holding in some kind of inner rage as their wives poured compliments on me. It was embarrassing though, and it got to the stage where I would spot these women out of the corner of my eye and, knowing they were about to pounce, would start a conversation with someone next to me in the hope that they would go away. I couldn't stand that look of resentment from the hubbies. Let me make it clear, these ladies were only expressing their admiration of my business acumen and the way I performed on the show - nothing else. Let's face it - George Clooney I'm not.

The other 'commentators' were men aged between thirty-five and fifty: 'This
Apprentice
is all a load of rubbish. That's not business. That Sugar's talking a load of bollocks.' That was the testosterone speaking and, funnily enough, I would get more of this kind of thing if the chaps' female companions had complimented me.

Sir Stuart Rose, chairman of Marks & Spencer, when asked by the
Sunday Times
what he thought of my role in
The Apprentice,
said words to the effect of, 'Don't compare me to him - if I carried on like that with
my
staff, I would have had my P45 a long time ago.'

I thought this was a rather scathing remark and he'd have done better not to comment when asked, particularly as he had never really met me. I emailed him and asked why a so-called experienced businessman would be goaded by a journalist into making such remarks. I pointed out that the founder of Marks & Spencer, Michael Marks, had started as I had, on a market stall, albeit in Leeds. My grandfather, Simon Sugar, in his later years, used to liken me to him. Stuart replied with a load of waffle, asking to meet me to discuss it further. I told him not to bother.

Being on TV affects different people in different ways. Margaret, for example, claims she hates the fame
The Apprentice
has brought her. I do find it hard to believe, but she insists she does. She doesn't like people recognising her when she's on the tube or the bus, or impertinently coming up to her on the street saying, 'You're that lady from the TV programme.' Nick, on the other hand, accepts recognition with ease. I sometimes joke that he would turn up to the opening of an envelope. 'Only if there's a cheque inside,' he says.

To be honest, I thought it was great being part of such a popular television programme.
The Apprentice
brought me fame and I won't deny that I enjoyed it. However, I feel I managed it quite well and didn't go overboard. I was getting offers for newspaper interviews, invitations to cocktail parties and all that stuff, but I turned most of them down. I did appear on Jonathan Ross's show because I understood it was a BBC request to help promote the series. For the same reason, I did a few press interviews for some of the national newspapers, but that was it. I also turned down all sorts of reality television programmes, panel games and, would you believe,
Strictly Come Dancing!

Unbelievable - the idiots, thinking I would get involved in that.

And the End of an Era at Amstrad

2005-7

They're a funny bunch of people in television. They're good at what they do - making programmes - but when they try to be shrewd in business, this mob in the TV industry are useless. For instance, after the success of the first series of
The Apprentice,
everybody knew there would be a second series, yet the BBC's Jane Lush was keeping up the charade that it hadn't been decided yet. She was playing it cool, thinking that if she looked too eager, it would cost them too much money. Quite frankly, as an attempt at bluffing it was a bit pathetic. She reminded me a bit of the David Hyams/Bob Watkins/Ian Saward types - trying to be what they're not.