Mr Sammells was the head of Oakhill Grammar School. Mark Redman attended the school but his father, Mike Baldwin, was undergoing cash flow problems in his business life. Finding out from the school prospectus that they offered scholarships to gifted pupils, he made an appointment to see Mr Sammells to apply for one. The head told Mike that Mark was not the sort of lad that the trustees of the scholarship were looking to give awards to. They were set up for exceptionally gifted students and Mark wasn’t in that class. In addition, the parents of students who could qualify for a scholarship on the basis of their limited income would not be pleased to see one of the small number of places being granted to a pupil whose father drove an expensive car. At this point, Mr Sammells looked out of the window at Mike’s own car parked outside to emphasise his point. He sympathised with Mike’s cash flow position and asked him how long the situation would last. When Mike replied possibly three months, Mr Sammells reminded him that by that time he would owe the school the fees for both the current term and the next. Nevertheless, he agreed to defer payment until that time to avoid incurring an immediate loss to the school.