[2] Garden completed his staff training with the British Army, and did a postgraduate International Relations degree at Magdalene College, Cambridge.

[2] He was then appointed as station commander of RAF Odiham, where he flew the Westland Puma and Boeing Chinook helicopters.

[2] Garden was a web-site consultant before being appointed as Director of the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House, London.

He became a Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords in June 2004, made a life peer as Baron Garden, of Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden.

At the time of his death he was the party's defence spokesman in the Lords,[1] and was a member of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Select Committee from 2004 to 2006.

He was made a member of the Select Committee on Regulators, and was convenor of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Security and Non-Proliferation.

In 2005 and 2006 Garden played a leading role in a cross-party campaign to facilitate electoral participation by armed forces personnel and their partners.

His great legacy is the Electoral Administration Bill, for which he secured cross-party support to overcome, in the face of dogged Ministry of Defence opposition, the problems of registration and voting for members of the armed forces and their partners.Garden was a Fellow and Council Member of the Royal United Services Institute (FRUSI).

He was Chairman of the Rippon Group, which acts a focus for EU issues, from 2000 to 2006, and was a Patron of Saferworld and Crisis Action.

Garden retained his connections with the Services as President of London & South East Region Air Training Corps and as Hon.

He had two daughters with his wife, Sue, who stood for the Liberal Democrats in Finchley and Golders Green at the 2005 general election.

According to press reports, he adopted a very philosophical attitude to his illness, explaining to a friend how many of his fellow aircrew who had even less luck and were lost in their twenties and thirties.

The then Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell paid tribute to Lord Garden in a statement published on the party's website: "Tim Garden has been an outstanding member of the Liberal Democrat team in the House of Lords where his wisdom and top level military experience were widely recognised.

He was also a very active parliamentarian, leading an all-party group on defence and conflict issues and on the delegated powers and instruments committee.