A FORMER pupil and governor at King's School Worcester, who is now one of the country's leading foreign policy advisors, is set to receive a life peerage.

Sir Timothy Garden, right, will become Lord Garden when the Queen confirms him as a Liberal Democrat Life Peer at a ceremony on Thursday, June 3.

The award means he will sit in the House of Lords, but the title will not be passed on to his children.

Sir Timothy was born in Claines, in north Worcester, in 1944, and educated at Barbourne Preparatory School, before finishing his schooling at King's in 1962.

He then completed degrees in physics at Oxford University and international relations at Cambridge, before joining the Army and then the Royal Air Force.

By the time he left the services in 1996 he was an Air Marshall, had commanded a flying training unit, a Vulcan bomber squadron and a helicopter base, and was Assistant Chief of Defence Staff.

He also found time to serve as a Governor of King's School for eight years, until 1994, and remains a Patron of the School Appeal.

Sir Timothy was knighted in 1994 and honoured by President Chirac in July 2003 for his work on European defence issues, but said this was a very different accolade.

"I was absolutely delighted when I found out and this is a rather different honour as it's actually a job," he said.

"It is a great opportunity and I'm very much looking forward to the new challenge."

After retirement from the RAF, he was appointed director of Chatham House, in London, one of the world's leading foreign policy think tanks.

He is now a professor at King's College London and Indiana University, has written extensively on security topics and serves as a member of expert panels on defence and foreign policy issues.

His wife, Sue Garden, is the prospective Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Finchley and Golders Green, and the couple now live in Hampstead.

Sir Timothy plans to return to Worcester next month to attend a memorial service for former King's School headteacher David Annett.