A PERSONAL trainer spent two months hunting, fishing and foraging as her ancestors would have done more than 12,000 years ago.

Lucinda Stott, from Hartlepool, took part in Channel 5 reality show 10,000 BC, which was first aired last night (Wednesday, January 20).

The vegetarian was one of 24 Brits who were chosen to go to a remote part of Bulgaria to try to survive for two months in the wilderness with nothing.

She said: "Like our prehistoric ancestors we had to find our food, make our shelters and work together."

Not all the contestants made it through the two-month ordeal, described by programme makers as "TV's toughest social experiment".

The series was shot in the summer and explores whether a group of everyday people, taken from their 21st century lifestyle and plunged headlong into the Stone Age, can survive the experience for two months.

Initially unknown to the contestants, there was not one but two "tribes" to enter the landscape for this series, leading to conflict over resources.

Miss Stott said: "I thought being hungry would be the hardest bit, but actually that wasn't too bad. I just found the mental challenge of the complete change of lifestyle the toughest part. We had no contact with the outside world and that was hard.

"You'll see what happens, but I did a lot of foraging for food and I did take part in hunting. I'm vegetarian because I don't like the taste of meat rather than any other reason."

The contestants had to source their own food - without learning to fish, forage and hunt they would have starved.

While she enjoyed being in touch with nature, she said: "I think 21st century man has it easy because we are so technologically advanced.

"The experience has changed me. I appreciate food so much more. I might have once gone to the supermarket and picked up the perfect bag of apples and put down a bag with a bruised one in, but now I really understand how precious that food is.

"I have taken the TV out of my bedroom at home and I spend much less time on technology.

"It might have been a much harder life in the Stone Age but I think people were happier."