Robin Percival Smith was born in 1929, within the sound of London's famed Bow Bells and was educated in england, at Oakley Hall School at Cirencester, St. Johns School at Leatherhead, Gonville and Caius College (1950), Cambridge and the Westminster Hospital Medical School. He emigrated to Canada in the Royal Canadian Air Force and was posted to Vancouver in 1958. He practised family medicine in the city of Richmond from 1961 to 1971, then accepted a position as Staff Pysician with the Student Health Service at the University of British Columbia. He became interested in women's health, researching and writing a number of articles on screening for various conditions. His work on intrauterine contraception and post coital contraception led to his involvement with the Canadian Committee for Fertility Research and the World Health Organization. In 1981 he was appointed Director of the Student Health Service. He retired from medical practice in 1989 to devote unlimited time to his passion for sailing on the west coast of Canada aboard his sailing vessel, Tremethick II.