EVERY so often foreign policy descends from its rarefied heights and becomes distinctly human, just like the now thousands of constituents' problems I have dealt with over the years.

The best, if also the worst, example of this has been the tragedy of Kenneth Bigley. If a picture tells a thousand words, so too does the moment an issue like Iraq becomes a human story focused through the prism of one life - and its awful end.

Some scores of Britons have died in the conflict in Iraq; thousands of people altogether. None of those individually have had quite the attention or coverage of Kenneth Bigley's life - and death.

But that does not detract from our grief at these others' suffering. Rather, because of the method which Kenneth Bigley's kidnappers chose to use we were able to witness the suffering not just of Mr Bigley, but of all those others, in agonising slow motion.

His ordeal and death were unspeakable. So appalling and given in such execrable detail by the terrorists that much of the mist surrounding many people's views about the war suddenly cleared. The side we all had to be on - for Mr Bigley, against these terrorists, for decent devout Muslims, against those who try to hijack the religion then became stark.

This choice before us all was then underscored by the approach of the Bigley family. So with this kidnap. I had spoken to Craig, Mr Bigley's son, and Phil, his brother on many occasions and had met them on one occasion before, but that was in my very large office in the Foreign Office. I frankly wasn't sure what to expect, beyond one family in grief, when I walked up the front steps of Mr Bigley's mother's house in Walton, Liverpool, last Friday.

For over 20 days the Bigleys had had the anxiety, similar - though much worse - to that experienced by the relatives of someone who is terminally ill, where everyone really knows that the end is going to come, and all too soon, and whilst the life is still there, everyone clings to hope, not least because that's all they had. Then, just three hours before I arrived in their street, all hope for the Bigley family was extinguished.

What state would they be in? Would they still be able to maintain the same composure and dignity they had all through their ordeal? The answer to that question is "no" - in fact they had composure and dignity in even greater measure; so great it had turned to serenity. What I did witness, and I am proud to have done so, is a wonderful British, Liverpudlian family, led by Ken's mother Lil, loving and supporting each other through one of the most difficult times any family could endure.