Heroes, it is often said, are made from the most unlikely stuff, but anyone meeting the very young Horatio Nelson in the 1760s would have been forgiven for thinking that the pale, sickly looking little lad brought a whole new meaning to the term “unlikely stuff”.

Born on 29 September 1758, he was a tiny baby - probably born prematurely - and it was clear, from the very beginning, that he would never grow into a large man, supposing that he survived childhood at all.

In an age when a high percentage of babies - not to mention their mothers - died in childbirth and child mortality was at a level we can now hardly imagine, this sickly child beat all the odds to survive the first twelve years of his life.

At the time, depending upon which sets of statistics you follow, fewer than one in six and certainly no more than one in four children ever saw their sixth birthdays, but perhaps the country air in which he grew up gave little Horatio a slightly better chance than most.

His birthplace was Burnham Thorpe, in Norfolk and his father, the Reverend Edmund Nelson, was the local Rector and Edmund was one of five children surviving from a “brood” of eight, so perhaps there was something in the bloodline which made the Nelsons tougher than their outward appearances and thus able to overcome the natural trends of the time.

Edmund Nelson was actually Edmund Nelson Junior, his father Edmund Senior having also been a clergyman; in fact, the history of the entire family is connected with the church.

Nelson’s mother, Catherine Suckling, was the daughter of another clergyman and was born slightly further south, in Barsham, in Suffolk, moving to nearby Beccles, following her father’s death when she was aged just five.

Where Edmund’s family were solid, respectable and middle class, Catherine was related, through her mother, to the Walpoles, one of the foremost families in the country and this lineage would certainly do her own son, Horatio, no harm in later life.

It may well have been that Edmund Junior saw the potential in marrying such a well-connected wife, although Catherine was apparently good looking enough, if somewhat austere in appearance, though that was probably a plus for a young clergyman’s wife.

The couple married on 11 May 1749 and, shortly after, moved to Swaffham, in Norfolk, where the first of their eleven children was born.

Others followed, but two boys died in infancy - the second of them actually named Horatio also, in honour of Lord Walpole, but the Walpole connection eventually secured the Rectorship of Burnham Thorpe for Edmund and it was there that the majority of the family, including the Horatio we now remember, was born.

Burnham Thorpe was a curious parish by today’s standards, although perhaps not quite so odd by the standards of country parishes of those days, as there were probably only five or six dwellings in the village itself and the rest of Edmund’s “flock” would have been scattered around nearby farms and smallholdings.

Thus young Horatio, having been privately baptised at the age of ten days, because his parents feared he might not survive until his scheduled public christening in November 1758, grew up far from the squalor and crowded conditions of any eighteenth century town or city.

He was never to become what we might describe as truly “fit”, but he possessed an inner determination and belief that enabled him to overcome the genetic inheritance of his father’s side of the family and he was always active, whenever he was physically able to be.

One of his youthful pre-occupations was sailing and he learned to sail on Barton Broad, part of the extensive Norfolk Broads - it was therefore little surprise that he decided his future lay in a career in the Royal navy, especially as his uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling, commanded the third rate Raisonnable and it was partly through his uncle’s influence that he was appointed to that ship as an Ordinary Seaman and coxswain, at the tender age of twelve.

Not that beginning a naval career at that age was uncommon in 1771 - the navy’s vessels were full of young boys, all eager to make their way and see the world, for if a youngster could survive to achieve a commission, he knew he would be made for life.

However, young Horatio was soon to find that the flat calms of dinghy sailing on the Norfolk Broads were a far cry from the pitching and rolling of one of His Majesty’s ocean going vessels and the sea sickness which quickly gripped him was to take a permanent hold on his entire naval career.

That career started unpromisingly and, if the baby-faced lad had believed in omens, he would probably have turned tail and fled back to Burnham Thorpe, long before the Raissonable ever put to sea with himself on board.

When he arrived in Chatham, he was unable to find the ship and nobody could tell him where it was. Perhaps, had his mother not died four years earlier, he might well have been tempted to retreat to the comfort of her bosom ...

Undaunted, however, the skinny and unprepossessing lad wandered about the docks until, eventually, someone took pity upon him and took him to his uncle’s ship. Sadly, Uncle Maurice was not aboard.

Captain Suckling was away from his ship for several days - quite possibly in London, accepting his future orders, although history is unclear on that point - and little Horatio was forced to spend several friendless days aboard, until his uncle eventually arrived to welcome him into the service.

Fortunately for Britain’s future hero, there was little time to dwell further upon his situation, for Raissonable’s orders were to sail to the West Indies and, within a few short weeks, the lad who had been fortunate to survive his first weeks on earth, found himself in mid-Atlantic, often staring miserably over the gunwhales, whilst depositing his latest meal into the waves below.

But, if he was lacking in bodily strength and stamina, the boy lacked nothing mentally and, having cast his die, he was determined to stick it out. Within two years, he had sailed thousands of miles, experiencing the Atlantic, the Caribbean and the North West Passage and, very soon, he began to move up through the ranks.

Very little in the way of written testimony has survived to tell us of his first six or seven years in the navy, although semi-contemporary accounts suggest that the teenage Horatio was a romantic at heart and very quick to fall in love with just about every pretty woman he met.

Fortunately, his older brother officers managed to keep some sort of rein on him and steer him clear of some of his less than suitable desires and, such was his natural ability as a seaman - despite his mal de mer - and his popularity and ability to inspite others, that he was made Post Captain at the age of just twenty and given the command of HMS Boreas.

He might not even have lived to attain that command, for in 1780, having survived various bouts of dysentery and malaria, following periods of service in the tropical climes of India, a bout of scurvy spread through his ship, killing many of his shipmates and laying Nelson himself low for many days.

And yet, remarkably, this frail little young man battled and came through ...

Now, however, fortune decided to take a break from the young officer’s life; after years of unrest and wars between Britain and France, a peace - albeit an uneasy one - was signed between the two old enemies and cuts were made in both the army and the navy.

As a result, Nelson found himself ashore, on reduced pay and without a sea-going command. Fate, though, had already played one deciding card and one which was to haunt Nelson for the rest of his life.

Whilst still captain of Boreas, he had met a young widow, Fanny Nisbet and became captivated by her little boy. This liaison, for what it was worth initially, might still have come to nothing.

However, the young sea dog was still in the process of getting over his passion for the beautiful Mary Montray, the young wife of the elderly Commissioner for British Naval Forces in the West Indies, who had returned to England with her husband.

Such was the depths of Nelson’s despondency over this ill-fated love, that he failed to realise that Fanny was a complete mis-match for him and, instead of just welcoming her friendship and companionship as a distraction from his grief, he very soon resolved to marry her, which he did in 1787.

Curiously, for the next few years, their relationship seemed happy enough, but probably only because Nelson had nothing with which to compare it and also because he was unhappily “beached” and his roving spirit, in every sense of the word, was thus curbed.

It could not and did not last, especially as the uneasy peace with France was about to end ...

When revolution erupted in France, the shock waves spread across Europe, not least of all across the English Channel, where the government of the day, still largely in the hands of the aristocracy and their “puppets”, senses a very real threat to their continued existence.

If the French revolutionaries had been content to restrict their social reforming to their own country, all would probably have continued without too much upheaval, but there were discontented elements in every other European country at the time and Britain was no different - having plenty of documentary evidence to show them just how bad a civil war could be, the British upper and upper middle classes weren't about to risk allowing the French to influence their own lower classes, but soon the people had other things to occupy their thought..

Having reduced the stature of their king by a head, the French began turning their attentions beyond their borders, partly because they feared that traditional royalist elements in the neighbouring countries might try to intervene and restore a monarchy in France and partly because, like all political zealots, they were determined to spread their message as far afield as possible.

That approach was certainly laudable enough, but it was an approach that was bound to bring trouble - and trouble was not long in coming, especially once their home situation had stabilised and certain figures began to emerge - among them a young artillery officer named Napoleon Bonaparte ...

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