Sir Alan's new £100,000 star

FOR the past 11 weeks he has been pointing a menacing finger at wannabe executive after wannabe executive and growled: 'You're fired!'

Last night, however, Sir Alan Sugar had a happier message to deliver. 'You're hired!' he told 27-year-old Tim Campbell as he made him his £100,000-ayear right-hand man.

Mr Campbell, who struggled through a fatherless childhood to gain a university degree and a managerial job with London Underground, beat off the challenge of volatile Saira Khan, 34, to win BBC2's reality TV show The Apprentice.

His final task on the programme made a £2,200 loss on a £5,000 investment - a failure that could have provoked self-made multi-millionaire Sir Alan to launch into a typical tirade of abuse.

But he had done enough to convince the electronics tycoon of his potential and emerge the winner from 14 original contestants.

Mr Campbell, who like Miss Khan has been on a retainer with Sir Alan's Amstrad empire pending the end of filming last autumn, will now take up a permanent post complete with car allowance, private health care and expense account.

He immediately paid tribute to his Jamaican-born mother Una, who raised him and his brother and sister single-handed in Stratford, East London.

'I entered the show because I wanted to make her proud,' he said. 'My mum was there at the final and she was screaming and crying - I think she was on a bigger rollercoaster than me.

'I understand the sacrifices she made when we were growing up and I wanted to repay her. One of the first things I'm going to do with my first month's pay is send my mum away on a holiday.'

Mr Campbell lives with his fiancee Jasmine Johnson, 31, and their three-year-old daughter Kayla. 'My daughter couldn't be at the final because she's a bit young. But I have promised to buy her a blue dress with my first wages because that's what she wants,' he said.

'Another reason for me to enter the show was to be a strong role for my daughter. She's growing up and I want to be able to say to her, 'Daddy did something good and you can too'.'

His own father, a DJ and record stallholder, walked out on the family when he was a baby. He has not been in contact since. 'I have no idea where he is,' said Mr Campbell. 'He could be dead for all I know.'

Instead, the young Tim, his younger brother Nathan and sister Tanya looked to their mother for inspiration and support. 'My mother became everything for us - the one to give us love, to nurture us and to instil discipline,' he said.

'She would get up at 5am to do a cleaning job and take us to a neighbour, bleary-eyed and in our pyjamas. Then she'd come back, take us to school, go to her main job in the rag trade, bring us back to the neighbour after school and then go off to another cleaning job.'

Despite her guidance, he became a rebellious teenager, either getting into trouble at school or skipping it altogether. But then an RE teacher took him under his wing.