A former fisherman is having to part with his beloved collection of toy boats which cost him tens of thousands of pounds.

Pete Dixon, 75, started collecting radio-controlled vessels when he split up with his wife 30 years ago.

And now he has filled every room in his three-bedroom privately rented home in Grimsby, Lincolnshire, he has been told it’s a fire hazard – and the boats have to go.

‘When I finished fishing, I bought a couple of boats and I got the bug and started collecting them,’ he said.

‘I was married for 19 years and when we split up, that’s when I started buying boats as a hobby and doing them up.

‘I’d see a boat and I’d buy it if I liked it. I would buy boats, repair them and motorise them. It was like a production line, it was all good fun.

‘I wouldn’t like to guess how much money I’ve spent over the years, but it must be tens of thousands. It was more or less every penny I had.’

His huge haul is expected to fetch between £40,000 and £60,000 – and he intends to use the money to buy himself a real boat.

Pete’s boats will go under the hammer on Sunday with Prestige Auctions, which is where he bought many of the vessels from in the first place.

‘I was thinking about knocking a hole in the wall and renting next door to store them all, but I’ve decided to get rid of them all,’ he added.

‘It is sad in a way to see them go, but it has to happen sometime.’

After retiring from a 40-year career at sea, he became known as the ‘resident boat buyer’ at the auction house because he was there so often looking for a bargain.

Prestige Auctions owner Carl Vince called him a ‘real-life Uncle Albert’ because of his shared love of all things nautical with the Only Fools And Horses character.

‘To walk in to a house and to have that in your face, you don’t know where to start,’ Carl said.

‘Every single room of his house was full of boats.

‘There were actually 600 boats when we first started, we had to take 200 out just to move.

‘He’s been a customer for a number years, he was known as the resident boat buyer because he always bought boats, but nobody realised to what extent he was collecting.

‘These things aren’t cheap, they start at £40 or £50 and can go up to thousands, but he had spent everything he had on the boats.’

Pete has not put a reserve on the boats, saying he ‘wants them to go to people who love them’.

Carl added: ‘I’m expecting the collection will bring between £40,000 and £60,000, I think it each boat will make an average of £100.’

If Pete makes enough money to buy a real boat, he’s told the auctioneers he wants that to be sold off for the Fisherman’s Mission charity after his death.

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