POLICE officers, doctors nurses and many others constantly face the situation of dealing with the distress and agony of the bereaved, especially where the death is a violent one. We expect them to keep their composure - "a stiff upper lip" - as without it they would not be able to do their job, of comfort and support.

In both my ministerial jobs I have had to deal, far more than ever I anticipated, with the consequences of death. However awful I've felt inside, as I've visited a murder scene, rail crash, terrorist outrage or, as last week, Thailand to see the aftermath of the tsunami, I've tried to put a brave face on things.

But all of us, however used we may be to our role and professional we may seek to be, are only human beings. And occasionally the mask slips.

This happened to me in Phuket, Thailand, last Friday. I had arrived late on the Thursday to stay in a lovely, undamaged but eerily empty hotel. Then it was a meeting some of the 50 British police and forensic officers who have the grisly but necessary job of identifying the remains of British citizens killed in the disaster.

I knew some of these officers from my time as Home Secretary and some had served in the anti-terrorist branch, having to clear up the body parts of people murdered by bombs. They all said they had never ever seen anything like this - nor faced such difficulties in identification.

The decomposure of the bodies has been such that telling whether someone was of Asian, African or European ethnic origin has proved impossible by visual means.

From there I went to Patong Beach, one of the worst areas affected, which had elements of the surreal - a small army of workers clearing and scouring the beach, wrecked vehicles, shops smashed - yet 50 yards down the sand two tourists sunbathed as though nothing had happened.

On the way to do a interview with Sky I passed the large notice board with stark notices about missing relatives and friends.

A young woman's photograph caught my eye. She looked like a relative of mine. Then I noticed that the age was the same as hers, as was the Christian name. The mask slipped, just for a few seconds, but I'm told the shock was obvious.

It was that photograph, more than anything else, which brought home the bottomless grief of those who have lost loved ones in this, the world's worst natural disaster for at least a century. It helped prepare me for what was to come, seeing those relatives of the bereaved, and many injured, in both Phuket and later in Bangkok.

I saw, separately two women who had gone to Thailand with their partners and all their children. They would be leaving Thailand without their partners or any of their children. All dead.

Words, a silence and embraces are all we have in that situation. Words and silence help, as the liturgies of all world religions eloquently show, but nothing can answer the questions 'Why?' and, most poignantly of all, 'Why didn't the wave swallow me, not my children?'

But there's a difference between police officers, doctors and nurses, and me, and that's this - I only have to deal with this kind of situation from time to time. They have to deal with it all the time. I'm not sure I could.