The villagers of the tiny French village of Fonsorbes on the outskirts of Toulouse were expecting it to rain on Tuesday. The forecast had been for showers. But in life's many twists, they woke up to a glorious day of sunshine. The irony wouldn't have been lost on Ken Catton.
On the day of his funeral, nature conspired to give Catton, 84, an unexpected sunny farewell. It was payback time for all those days of frustration Catton had to endure in his heyday as the tournament director of Hong Kong's many professional tennis tournaments.
One year, when the Marlboro Tennis Classic was being played in the late-1980s, the rain fell steadily at Victoria Park and no play was possible. With a newspaper needing a picture for the back page of sports, Catton was approached nervously by this writer, who wanted him to pose on centre court with an umbrella.
For a brief moment, I wondered if I had stepped over the bounds of propriety, for it was no laughing matter about the rain which was keeping the players off the court. Remembering, too late, of the courtside chatter which whispered that it would rain whenever Catton organised a tennis match, I felt he would explode.
But Catton was quick to see the funny side of the request, and smilingly obliged to stand for the picture - with the umbrella. That picture caught the mood perfectly.
Catton was ever after affectionately known as the 'Rain Man' in media circles. He took it in his stride, like he did the many obstacles in his path - be it government apathy at repeated requests to build a new stadium at Victoria Park, or the dark days when the Hong Kong Cricket Sixes turned its back on him.
'Ken always had a sharp sense of humour. He was a genuine person,' agreed Ian Wade, the president of the Hong Kong Tennis Patrons Association (TPA), a body which Catton was instrumental in founding back in 1976.