Commander Tom Foden 1916 - 2006
 Former naval commander Tom Foden of Clevedon, North Somerset, was an energetic and loveable man who led a fascinating and very full life.
He was Bristol Channel Agent for the world famous paddle steamer PS Waverley and her consort, the Bristol registered MV Balmoral, for 40 years and finally retired on his 90th birthday.
As a young naval officer he was assigned Admiral’s Secretary while serving with a British strategic command vessel lying off the beaches of Normandy during the D Day landings of June 1944.
Tom once related the fascinating tale of how after the beachhead had been secured, a senior officer had asked him to nip ashore and bag a German staff car and have it loaded aboard.
It had been a pretty tall order but as luck would have it, he eventually found a vehicle abandoned behind a building with its keys still in the ignition.
 The staff car, still flying a Swastika on its bonnet, was duly returned to Portsmouth and some weeks later Tom asked if he could borrow it for a run ashore.
Permission being granted, he drove it up to Bristol and parked it outside the former Mauritania Hotel at the bottom of busy Park Street.
The strange thing was, as Tom recalled, the staff car was still flying its German flag but no one appeared to have noticed.
After leaving the Royal Navy, Tom looked around for another interesting post in his line of country and became naval adviser to Alexander Desta, Commander-in-Chief of the Ethiopian Navy and a grandson of the country’s ruler Haile Selassie.
By this time Tom had moved to Clevedon and the local paper, The Clevedon Mercury, reported on how he had found a breeder of Chihuahua dogs to supply Haile Selassie with pets because he had become fond of the breed while in exile in Bath during the Second World War.
 After returning to power, the emperor had attempted to introduce reforms and modernise his state but this coupled with a famine and a continuing conflict with Eritrea led to the 1974 military rebellion, which overthrew Haile Selassie and forced Tom to flee the country.
Back in Clevedon he looked around for a new role and later took up his position as Bristol Channel Agent of the Glasgow based paddle steamer Waverley and her sister ship, the Bristol registered motor vessel Balmoral.
Looking after the Waverley during her twice-yearly visits to the West Country and South Wales, and the Balmoral during her packed summer seasons in the Bristol Channel was quite a demanding role especially when sailings were cancelled due to bad weather or changed so that coaches had to be deployed to ferry passengers.
Tom was a familiar figure who could mostly always be seen on Clevedon Pier when one of the ships was in and whose favourite saying: “Well played,” could often be heard abroad.
 He had a wide circle of friends and a close association with St Mary’s Church, Walton, and when he finally decided to retire, the MV Balmoral made a special trip into Avonmouth Docks for a combined and packed 90th birthday party and farewell celebration.
He was succeeded as Bristol Channel Agent by Alec Lewis, a former Bristol Polytechnic lecturer, who first met Tom in the 1970s when the commander was running a series of six-week resettlement courses for retiring British Forces personnel.
Said Alec: “ He was a truly wonderful man.”
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