The Queen sent a message of support to Ken Bigley's family last night as the city of Liverpool went into mourning after his death.

Buckingham Palace said the Queen sent a private message of condolence to Mr Bigley's mother, Lily.

The murdered hostage had hoped that his one last posting in Iraq would help to set him up for a happy retirement in Bangkok after a career spent working across the globe and a life punctuated with heartache.

The twice married 62-year-old, who has one son and lost a second in a tragic road accident, had planned to finish a contract at a US military base within months.

Then he hoped to return to his Thai wife and prepare for the birth of his first grandchild.

He talked about his retirement plans during night-time strolls he took around the streets of Mansour, the wealthy Baghdad suburb where he lived in a guarded two-storey house with fellow workers.

Colleagues, Americans Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong, were brutally beheaded by captors from the Tawhid and Jihad group who snatched the men from their villa.

At his mother, Lil's red-brick terrace in Walton, Liverpool, and at wife Sombat's home in Bangkok, Mr Bigley's family had been left to hope that the genial civil engineer did not meet the same gruesome fate.

The desperate figure they witnessed pleading for his life in a video appeal to Prime Minister Tony Blair was a man they could scarcely recognise.

Mr Bigley was born in the streets close to his beloved Everton's Goodison Park to mother Elizabeth, originally from Stepaside, County Dublin, and father, Thomas, a shipyard worker.

He was one of four brothers. Older sibling Stan, 65, is a retired driving instructor and lives in Wigan.

Paul, 54, runs a Dutch engineering company and has been vocal in his criticism of the handling of his brother's ordeal. Youngest brother Philip, 49, is a businessman.

After modest success in his schooling, Mr Bigley took an apprenticeship and later completed his national service with the Scots Guards.

He married his childhood sweetheart, Margaret, and in 1967, showed the first signs of his passion for travel by moving to Australia on a £10 assisted passage offered to skilled British immigrants.

Mr Bigley first worked as an engineer in Victoria where the couple's first son, Craig, now 33 and due to become a father in February, was born.

The family moved on to New Zealand, but pangs of homesickness and the offer of a job as the managing director of an engineering company drew them back to Merseyside.

Later, the couple bought two supermarkets in Hoylake, on the Wirral, but were left in shock when a suspected thief threatened Mrs Bigley with a hammer.

With his wife shaken and unsettled in the North-West, the family moved to Somerset and bought a picturesque pub, The Crown Inn, in East Huntspill, near Taunton.

But in 1986, their 17-year-old son, Paul, was knocked down by a lorry as he cycled to deposit his pocket money in a savings account and fell into a coma. Mr Bigley was forced to make the decision to turn off his son's life support machine and as he and his wife struggled with the grief, their marriage broke down.

Determined to rebuild his life, Mr Bigley again left Britain and opened a pub in Spain, working there for two years.

He later sought advice from his brother, Paul, who had worked in Lebanon in the 1980s, about resuming his engineering career in the Middle East.

Armed with contacts from his sibling, he began a new life which took him to Kuwait, Dubai, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

He remained in close contact with his family and made annual trips back to Liverpool to visit his mother and to watch Everton games with son Craig.

Seven years ago, he married for a second time. Wife Sombat hoped that her husband would join her in the next few weeks at their newly-built home in Thailand.

Mr Bigley had arrived in Iraq at the end of conflict. As one of his company's most valued engineers, he was offered the opportunity of a brief contract that would secure his financial future.

He was working at a US military base at Taji, 15 miles north of the Iraqi capital, for Gulf Supplies and Construction Services, his employers since 1997.

The UAE-based company protects equipment and camps for the US military. Mr Bigley was part of a team fulfilling a £50m US army contract to provide "base camp life support".

As the situation in Baghdad deteriorated, both Mr Bigley's wife, and his brother, Paul, had pleaded with Mr Bigley to leave, but neighbours in Iraq said he had few concerns about his own safety.

His brother, Philip, said he had come to appreciate Islamic culture and had a deep fondness for the region and its people.

"It is the reason he was prepared to help in Baghdad, where many others would be worried for their own safety," he told Arab television.

Mr Bigley drove a distinctive 4x4 vehicle in the city and was said to feel uneasy about using armed guards.

Some fear that his ease in his surroundings and his readiness to help local families may have alerted his captors to his whereabouts.

Mr Bigley is reported to have allowed neighbours to hook up to his generator, an act that may have drawn the attention of his captors. One neighbour said they had challenged his attitude to safety, but Mr Bigley replied: "I'm not afraid. You only die once."

The execution-style murder of Mr Bigley highlights the dangers faced by foreigners working in Iraq. Insurgents in the war-torn country have kidnapped more than 150 foreigners in their campaign to drive out coalition forces.

When Mr Bigley was kidnapped in Baghdad by the Tawhid and Jihad Group on September 16, his captors demanded the release of two women prisoners.

Many captured foreigners have been freed but at least 23 have been killed.

But contractors earn excellent wages, and many decide it is worth taking the risk.