Last year I shared my diary entries for my attempt to drive a car bought for £100 from Plymouth to Dakar, on the west coast of Africa. But what I completely forgot to share was what happened after, when we returned home after less than 12 hours of driving.

We’d raised money for Action for Children, and received corporate sponsorship from some generous firms and individual sponsorships from friends, family and colleagues. Sadly, we didn’t know Elon Musk, but I’m sure even the world’s richest man also thinks “God no, not another sponsorship request!” when someone sends an email for a fun run sponsorship around Tesla HQ. But, even without a billionaire, we’d done okay and were happy with the amount we’d raised for charity, even though we had spectacularly failed to complete the race. See here.

All was good. Except for one person.

“What do you mean, you didn’t complete it?” they asked.

“Our gears broke. We couldn’t drive more than 10mph. We had to abandon the car and then abandon the race. There was nothing we could do.” I explained.

“Well, there’s one thing you can do now,” they said.

“What’s that?”

“You can give me my money back!”

I laughed. I thought they were joking. They’d sponsored us £50, or to be more accurate, they’d sponsored the treatment of sick children in hospital fifty pounds.

“Do you us to break little Timmy’s leg again then,” I joked.

“No,” they said, “I just want my money back.” Before they added, because they wanted to show they were not being completely unreasonable: “Just let Timmy heal.”

This continued for another couple of minutes but every joke I made or comment designed to remind them how the charity was benifitting from their sponsorship was met with an outstretched open palm and a demand to put cash in it.

So, I had to pay them back. £50 for charity returned because we hadn’t completed the race.

It was a dick move. And, to be fair, probably the kind of move Elon Musk would pull too so I’m glad we didn’t get any sponsorship from him as he may have demanded his billion dollars back.

“Worst investment since Twitter,” he’d have said, which would be a tad harsh. At least we haven’t encouraged far right Nazis. At least not deliberately, I can’t speak for Action for Children.

In any event, the money was returned. The person was happy and I made sure to add a proviso to any future sponsorship requests: “Donations are non-refundable!”