THE 200th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar draws ever closer in patriotic sights. More than anyone else in the North, Mike Dalton plans to push the boat out.

For the 59-year-old guesthouse owner, every day is Trafalgar Day, its hero worshipped totally and without qualification. For Mike Dalton, it's the full Nelson.

His 27 bedroom place in Darlington is as much military museum as guesthouse, its central character the Norfolk clergyman's son who became Britain's greatest naval hero.

When he married last year, his £3,600 wedding suit was a faithfully replicated Nelson uniform and admiral's hat, the service and reception were on board HMS Warrior in Portsmouth - civilians can't marry on the Victory - and the honeymoon spent with 200 fellow enthusiasts cruising the ports which Nelson visited.

While history may not suppose that old Horatio had a girl in every one, he'd certainly dropped anchor once or twice.

"To my mind he's the greatest Briton ever, it's quite possible we'd be talking in French but for him," says Mike.

"He gave Wellington the opportunity to win the Battle of Waterloo. If it hadn't been for Nelson, we'd probably have been invaded long before.

"Winston Churchill was a wonderful man, I wouldn't hear a word against him, but Nelson led from the front. Collingwood was a brilliant admiral, but he could never have done what Nelson did."

Mike's first wife and childhood sweetheart died after a long illness, aged 49. He married Patricia on September 12, 2004 - the same day, 199 years earlier, that Nelson and his mistress Emma Hamilton had exchanged rings before he set out for Portsmouth, and for Trafalgar. Their rings were faithful replicas, too, Patricia's dress a "bargain" £500.

"The establishment didn't like Nelson because of his humble beginnings and because of Emma, but it was because of the strength of his personality that the entire British navy was behind him. They just believed in him."

Formerly owner of a transport caf and pub in Haverton Hill, near Billingham, Mike moved inland 15 years ago and began buying "bits and pieces" for the guesthouse.

Now every public room overflows with militaria, from uniforms to decommissioned machine guns, with much more elsewhere.

"It maybe makes me sound like a bit of war monger, but I'm the most peaceable man you could meet. If anyone started fighting, I'd probably run a mile."

The flagship is undoubtedly Vice-Admiral Nelson's. The dining room resembles a Trafalgar art gallery, the flag of St George on every table; walls elsewhere are painted with Nelson murals, shelves crowded with books, busts and other maritime mementos.

In the Greenbank guest house, the one eyed admiral is king.

"I suppose I first became fascinated by Nelson when I read the Hornblower books; I'm pretty sure Hornblower and Nelson were the same person.

"Nelson was a man's man. The establishment didn't ever fully accept him because he was working class. Emma was just an excuse, the reason he was only a vice-admiral."

He does, however, concede sympathy for Fanny Nesbitt, Nelson's wife. The arrangement, he says, was "complex".

"Even after his death, Fanny wouldn't say a bad word about him, though he'd written her some pretty nasty letters. Nelson couldn't see anything wrong with what he was doing, he was just madly in love with Emma and was actually quite blatant about it."

Next month, he and Patricia will be on the Thames for the re-enactment of Nelson's funeral procession - he wasn't buried until January 2006, his body having taken six weeks to ship home in a barrel of brandy. On October 21, Trafalgar Day, Mike plans a salute closer to home.

"Down south they're doing all sorts of things, but up in the north no-one seems to be making so much of the occasion.

"I think we'll maybe have something a bit special, make a bit of noise, have a Nelson party. It's 200 years since our country's greatest hero died, I shouldn't need an excuse to fly the flag, should I?"

AMONG Mike's more recently acquired naval souvenirs is a brass plaque marking the restoration of HMS Warrior in Hartlepool between 1979-87. It seems, shall we say, to have fallen off the back of a ship - and now he's anxious to return it to the Portsmouth-based vessel.

"I really don't need an excuse to go to Portsmouth. I'm nearly 60 years old and I still feel a presence there, but it would be good for both the ship and for the people of Hartlepool if it could be returned to its rightful place.

"I'm talking to the people in Portsmouth and trying to sort something out. It needs to be on the Warrior, back where it belongs.