Simon says Dominic never owned a suit and wouldn’t expect us to wear one at his funeral.

Simon says the family wants us all to wear casual clothes: “As if we were just going to the pub with Dominic one last time.”

I chose a dark short sleeved shirt and black jeans. My hand stretched past the Nike trainers and selected office shoes instead. I do wear them to the pub in case we go to a club after so it’s within the spirit of the rules.

I arrive and see all are suited and booted. Even Simon has the audacity to come in a tie.

“What happened to casual wear?” I ask.

“This is casual,” Simon says.

“When did you last wear a tie to the pub?”

Simon says: “It’s still a funeral mate. Besides, it is a Bugs Bunny tie.”

I don’t listen to what Simon says anymore.

It was thought of as mere bad luck that the boy was born during the biggest storm of the decade. Born during red-faced screeching, Mother said it was like she gave birth to the storm and Father chortled.

Years passed and the weather coincidences mounted: The toddler had a cold during each thick snow drop, a babysitter pointed out it would rain as she washed his hair, and as his tantrums grew so did the storms.

The storms got worse as the child grew older and became angrier. It was understandable that a boy would be angry if he never saw the sun. Never able to play outside.

Mother and Father would make excuses: “It’s global warming”, or “bloody British weather.” Looking for an escape from it all they went on a cruise together but the three of them were lucky to survive the outcome.

School children caught on quickly and the boy soon became the ‘Bad Weather Kid’. No one said it to him directly. Not since Timmy was struck by lighting.

As a teenager the boy became volatile. The boy’s home was once a sunny seaside town but now the locals were being driven away by constant downpour. In the years of puberty the cliffs eroded and the empty homes were consumed by the ocean.

With the town abandoned, only Father drowned.

The crushing guilt made the boy solemn and the storms were replaced with a steady rain. Mother had referred to her son’s condition as “his gift”. After the loss her husband she decided God was punishing them for not using it properly.

Mother sent The Bad Weather Kid to Africa. He’d tour the continent bringing rain to all. Droughts would end and crops would grow. Her boy was the answer to famine and she only wished she realised it before Father died.

Her boy arrived and everyone waited for the rain… But there was nothing. The boy experienced clear skies for the first time in his life and rather than celebrate he complained of migraines. Mother decided it was best he stay, as at least they were no longer having a destructive effect, or so they thought. The drought drew longer, the sun shone harder, what little crops grew had now perished. He was the ‘bad weather kid’ after all.

Once they returned to England, mother withdrew from society. At 15-years-old Social Services took the boy away and soon reported his strange effect to the government. The testing and prodding didn’t last long. The boy became furious and the storm encompassed the nation.

Too bitter, too angry, too grief-stricken – the psychologists said it would take years to control his emotions and by then the country would be devastated.

They raked their brains looking for an answer but not that one. No one dare suggest such a thing. Not on the first day at least. Someone whispered it in the first week but the rest ignored it. By the end of the month the defeated sleep-deprived experts slouched in their chairs and the Prime Minister said it.

He leaned forward and asked: “What if we kill the boy?”

Captain Blackbeard was an excellent recruiter.

“Tax breaks aside,” he’d say, “there’s three perks to being a pirate. You’ll travel the world, work with animals and enjoy a great pension scheme!”

Blackbeard never had a reputation for nurturing talent and failed to pass on his map drawing skills.

Fifty years on I realise I should have pushed him for training. My X looked fine but what way to hold the map? How’d I forget to write north on the thing?

“East!” I confidently proclaimed to the trusting crew.

A one in four chance? Maybe. I’ve made it through tougher odds.