About 800 schoolchildren dressed in Victorian costume will converge on the Dickens Festival for the grand opening parade today.

Youngsters will take up the theme of the author’s novel, The Pickwick Papers, as they wind their way along the High Street at 1.30pm.

More than 60,000 people are expected for the annual summer festival, a celebration of the life of Rochester’s famous son who spent 20 years in the Towns.

This year’s extravaganza has been pushed back by one week to coincide with the 350th anniversary of the Battle of Medway commemorations.

But there will still be all the usual mix of costumes, parades, theatre, walking tours, craft market, best dressed competition, talks and more. For children, there will be arts and crafts, Punch and Judy and a traditional fun fair.

Performers will include Charles Dickens’s great-great grandson Gerald. He will be performing Mr Dickens is Coming! – a light-hearted biographical show.

And the usual suspects, Miss Havisham, Scrooge, Magwitch and Bill Sikes will be mingling with the crowds who line the streets over the three days.

Medway’s leisure and tourism spokesman, Cllr Howard Doe, said: “The grand parade will be a lively spectacle.

“Lots of activities have been arranged throughout the Dickens Festival weekend for all of the family to enjoy.”

A park-and-ride service will operate from the Waterfront bus station in Chatham, the Great Lines Heritage Park, from the Marlborough Road entrance in Gillingham and the universities’ car park at Chatham Maritime.