Harry Price ( Royal Navy seaman ) Harry Price DSM ( 1877 – June 1965 ) was an ordinary seaman of the Royal Navy . He became a well travelled figure , producing accounts and drawings of his travels , and publishing his account of the Royal cruise he was part of aboard the temporarily commissioned HMS " Ophir " in 1901 . He served on a number of ships during the First World War , and later took up a number of occupations . Family and early life . Price was born in Birmingham in 1877 , the son of parents who had moved from Wales . His father was a master builder in the city . His family produced a minor poet , and a member of the Royal Academy . Price and his family were also keen anglers and became expert coarse fishers , being dubbed the ' champion fishing family of Birmingham ' . Price ' s artistic ability became pronounced and eventually noted . He was sent to the Birmingham School of Art , progressing rapidly through the school until he was told that his natural talent was such that they could not teach him anything . Dissatisfied with life in Birmingham , which he termed ' the land of bricks and mortar ' , he left home in 1893 and joined the Royal Navy . He only returned to Birmingham to attend his mother ' s funeral . Royal Navy life . Price joined the navy ' s training establishment HMS " Britannia " , based at Devonport . He was a keen walker , taking with him his fishing rod and paints . During this time he discovered the village of Drewsteignton , and became so enamoured that he decided to settle there after his retirement from the navy . He was a keen patriot , but had joined the navy with the intention of ' seeing the world ' , and often rebelled against instances of harsh naval discipline . He briefly led a minor mutiny , but after it began to take on ' ugly proportions ' , he put an end to it . The naval authorities decided to pardon him . He was a skilled recruit however and rapidly rose through the ranks during his time at " Britannia " . This good record led to his selection as part of the crew for the planned royal cruise of George , Duke of Cornwall and York , later King George V , and Mary , Duchess of Cornwall and York . The couple were to sail to Australia to open the Parliament . On the way they were to call at numerous ports of the British Empire , and return to Britain by way of Canada . It was the most ambitious royal tour undertaken to that date . Price , by now a Petty Officer was with the tour from February to November 1901 , and made a careful record , later published posthumously in 1980 as " The Royal Tour 1901 , or the Cruise of H . M . S . Ophir ; Being a Lower Deck Account of their Royal Highnesses , The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York ' s Voyage Around the British Empire " . The book was illustrated with Price ' s own sketches and paintings , which recorded aspects of life on board ship during the cruise , as well as the reception at the various ports of call , details of colonial life and the interactions of warships of many different nationalities encountered on the voyage . The voyage covered over 45 , 000 miles , but with the exception of Port Said , the ports called at were all part of the British Empire . Price remained in the Navy until 1907 , when he became part of the Royal Naval Reserve . He was mobilised on 2 August 1914 with the outbreak of the First World War . He eventually served on five different ships , three of which , including the battleship s HMS " Ocean " and , were sunk in the space of nine months . He spent 14 hours in the water after the sinking of " Ocean " before he was picked up by a destroyer . He was an excellent swimmer though , and having been born with a caul , he declared ' I could never drown . ' He survived the war , receiving the Distinguished Service Medal , and was demobilised in March 1919 . Later life . Price settled in Drewsteignton and became a talented naturalist , eventually developing a substantial collection of birds ' eggs and butterflies . He became a freelance collector for Watkins and Doncaster , of The Strand . Through this he came to be associated with Richard Kearton , who together with his brother Cherry Kearton , were pioneers in the development of bird photography . Price too then took up bird photography . He resumed his fishing , writing a number of books on the subject , including one on carp fishing . He was also an expert gardener , and on occasion sent produce to be exhibited at the Royal Horticultural Society ' s shows . He also grew tobacco , for he was a moderately heavy pipe smoker , curing it using a method he had developed from observing the tobacco industries at Havana and Rhodesia . He remained an active painter , and also modelled ships , including a fully rigged model of HMS " Impregnable " . He had made a model ship during his time in the navy , which he used to smuggle tobacco out of the dockyard . He took up wood carving when over 70 years old . He was left disabled following a stroke at the age of 83 , and died in hospital in June 1965 at the age of 88 .