We could have been falling through air.On the way back to the hotel, I stopped off at the graveyard To my surprise the scientists had abandoned the site Only the gravediggers remained “We’re filling up the hole,” said one “Why?” I asked “The pit is collapsing,” was the cheerful reply. It was the collapse of a dream for my dad.TWO DAYS LATER I had breakfast with him Fresh bread, seal, herring. We only had an hour or so: he wanted to nip up and see the vicar; he also had a plane to catch. With a guide, a rifle (for the polar bears) ropes, crampons and a pickaxe, we crunched through a world of white snow, and white fog so dense that sky and land became interchangeable. “The team is thrilled and delighted to have found soft tissue samples.” I left the site with my father and together we climbed up a mountain and crossed on to the Longyearbyen glacier It was the first time we’d spent the day alone for 10 years.

The few remaining journalists were told to rejoice: “The team is very, very pleased,” said Kirsty Duncan. Unbeknown to us, while we were congratulating ourselves on getting the samples, water had been creeping into the pit. Almost overnight it started to disintegrate.”The next morning a press conference was held at the graveyard. The radar reading showed ground disturbance two meters deep; the chances of there being more bodies down below were good “That was the high point. With the tenderness of a father, Blenkinsop lay beside each of the six bodies on a platform of wood planks, and using three tools – a scalpel, a knife and a pair of forceps – he gently lifted out lumps of organs, carefully removed the layer of silt, then placed them reverently in the sample jars. The mood was celebratory; it had been decided at a meeting just before dinner that the digging would continue.

He also took samples of bone marrow, hair (“blond” through loss of pigment), and small artefacts such as bits of newspaper or rope.That evening there was a banquet. “But there wasn’t an inch between each coffin.”Barry Blenkinsop, an assistant pathologist from the Chief Coroner’s office in Ontario, Canada, conducted the autopsies. His colleague, Charles Smith, took tooth samples from each of the six men. All were submerged in water and coated with a fine, clay-like substance The coffins were packed tightly into the grave “I thought they would be more separate,” says my father. There were no personal items, no pieces of clothing; little care had been taken in arranging the bodies Only one had his hands crossed over his crotch The rest lay with their hands by their sides. The sight was pitiful: the seven coal-miners, all young men, had been buried naked, wrapped in nothing but newspaper. I couldn’t have identified tissues or organs, looking at them.