Philip Clermont Livingston was born in Cowichan Bay, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, in 1895. His father was managing director of the family shipping firm. He went to school in Vancouver Island and then studied at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he won a rowing blue with the victorious crew in the 1914 Boat Race. He interrupted his studies in 1915 to volunteer as a Surgeon-Probationer in the Royal Navy and saw plenty of action before resuming his training in 1917. He went to the London Hospital and later Moorfields and was assistant to Sir Hugh Rigby, Robert Milne and Sir John Parsons. In 1919 he entered the RAF on a temporary commission and spent 32 years in the service first as a general duties medical officer, next as a surgeon-specialist, then as ophthalmological consultant and finally as Director-General. He initiated much research into aviation medicine, his own work being mainly in vision, particularly in the measurement and development by training of night vision. He gave a Moynihan Lecture and, in 1942 was Montgomery Lecturer in Dublin and Chadwick Lecturer in London. He served on committees of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom. He retired from the RAF in 1951 with the rank of Air Vice-Marshal and returned to British Columbia. There he started a new career as a civilian ophthalmologist and he became a prominent and well-loved member of the local community. He married Lorna Muriel Crispin in 1920 and they had two sons, Clermont, born in 1923 and Michael, born in 1928. Both became doctors and Clermont predeceased his father. Philip published his autobiography *Fringe of the clouds* in 1962 and died, twenty years later, on February 13, 1982.