One of my favourite yarns about Lord Nelson concerns an old Norfolk boy who went to take a look round Victory, the ship on which the great admiral perished in his hour of triumph at Trafalgar.

“That’s the very spot where our hero fell” announced a rather earnest young guide, pointing to a raised plaque on the deck.

“I ent surprised” exclaimed Nelson’s rustic admirer. “I nearly beggared over the bloomin’ thing ’m self!.”

A homely illustration of the way our heritage is packaged and sold in a fast-growing tourism trade, turning dry dates and files of facts into rousing adventures starring colourful characters.

It also helps explain why so many important historical events happened next door to a souvenir shop.

Fortunately, we have been spared too much marketing mayhem over Norfolk’s most celebrated son although an outbreak of Nelsonmania  in 2005 on the 200th anniversary of his death did threaten to spill over into murky depths.

Burnham Thorpe’s leading role model  was dressed out as a teddy-bear  to offer “ a more welcoming image of the county in that he will identify the cuddly, hospitable side that is underneath the Norfolk mentality.”

If we can’t unravel that for each other. I fail to see how it might have been made available to newcomers and visitors.

A Lady Hamilton doll whispering “Kiss me, Hardy!”  while fluttering her eyelashes and puckering crimson lips … now, that would have stood  a chance.

Talking of female wiles, we did find a sultry successor to Gwyneth Paltrow, the actress who left dainty footprints on Holkham beach and all over “Come to undiscovered Norfolk!” brochures as she left Shakespeare in Love in 1998. (I won’t do any clever lines about going from Bard to worse).

Keira Knightley  - which sounds just like a plaintive plea from an old people’s home – scattered a few fresh bits of tinsel around Cley Marshes and Holkham Hall six years later.

What the lesser-spotted reedtrosher and much-valued estate worker made of all that cleavage and corset has yet to be revealed .But The Duchess got a regal reception from tourism bosses who know an uplifting prospect when they spy one.

Welcome to Keira Country! From mansion to marshes – take the Norfolk road to Hollywood! There’s still time for a follow-up wave of celluloid sensations set in this neck of the woods.

Cley Noon, a samphire eastern – that’s our answer to the spaghetti western – has long been touted.

Glamour locations 2

Of course, celebrity-spotting is an established Norfolk sport way beyond Brancaster Staithe and Burnham Upmarket. Excitement over sightings of television drama crews scaled fresh heights when Stephen Fry helped turn Swaffham into Market Shipboroough, complete with beach and lifeboat looking uncannily like replicas in Wells. Kingdom’s local accents matched the programme’s generally makeshift ideas of geography.

While we wait for Betsy Trotwood to shoo away donkeys from the seafront at North Pickenham, I can reveal exclusively a number of glamorous locations and associated items bound to attracts new hordes of visitors hooked on dynamic connections. Resist these if you can:

*Tallest lamp-post in Sidestrand used regularly by Black Shuck before nocturnal rambles along clifftop paths towards Lost Village of Understrand.

*Biggest bush in the Stanford Battle Area employed regularly by Private Godfrey during filming of five episodes of Dad’s Army.

*Site of Woad Shop at Cockley Cley  for dyed-in-the- wool patriots where Boadicea took on fresh supplies before setting out to sack a few Roman settlements.

*Allotment in Weston Longville where Parson Woodforde obtained fresh vegetables for occasional dinner parties and his best-selling Gluten-Free Gourmet Guide.

*Exposed spot on Weybourne Beach where former prime minister John Major  wondered out loud one morning what the hell he was doing here in mid-winter.

*Square table used by Louis Marchesi  during early years in Norwich as a pastry cook before setting up an international movement for young men.

*Lay-by on road to Blickling Hall where a coach drawn by headless horses and driven by Anne Boleyn calls in each year for its MOT.

*Spot on Yarmouth Beach where young David Copperfield first saw the Peggottys’ pioneering efforts to solve a local affordable housing shortage.

*Trainers worn by Will Kemp on final leg of his Morris-dancing marathon from London to Norwich in 1599.

*Oak tree at Poringland favoured by John Crome, founder and father-figure of the Norwich School of Painting. Don’t touch if it’s still wet.

*Bikeshed used by John Chapman, Peddlar of Swaffham, before a dream took him on a successful treasure hunt in London. A puncture in Necton held up his progress on way there.