A town’s annual river festival is in full swing.

The Maidstone RIver Festival kicked off in glorious sunshine at midday when the festival chairman Cllr Dave Naghi fired off a maroon and sounded a 1940’s air-raid siren.

More than 85 boats are lining the riverbank, many dressed with flags and bunting.

In Coronation Square, at Lockmeadow, there are two large stages, which will host a dozen music and dance acts non-stop throughout the day, with Beats Workin headlining at 8.40pm.

There is also a children’s funfair at Lockmeadow, with an adventure house, hook-a-duck and many other favourites.

The main event - the famed raft race - is at 2.30pm, starting at the High Level Rail Bridge, when teams of volunteers will battle to be the first across the finish line in a variety of weird and wacky homemade craft, while trying to avoid the buckets of water thrown at them by the boat-owners.

Meanwhile, the church tower at All Saints’ Church is open, giving visitors with enough energy to climb to the top spectacular views across the town.There is a vintage double-decker bus giving free rides throughout the town, and over at Maidstone Museum, there is a simultaneous Steam Punk fair.

If you don’t know what steam punk is, best pop across and take a look, but it’s a fashion more related to Phileas Fogg than The Stranglers.

For a full festival programme visit here.

Lots of fun is being had, but there’s also a slightly more sombre note this year - several boats have been dressed to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, and Service groups attended a memorial service held at Fremlin Walk to remember the dear from the Second World War.

The day concludes with a fireworks display at 10pm, followed by the sounding of the All Clear siren.