A-Z Challenge 2018 - British Rivers: 'M' Mersey, Medway

I suppose that the River Mersey is one of England's well known rivers. Certainly Liverpool fans will know it well. In the 1960s many of us sang along to - 

 The 70 mile long Mersey is formed by three tributaries, the Rivers Etherow, Goyt and Tame and runs from Stockport to the sea in Liverpool Bay,

River Mersey

As long ago as the 400s AD which side of a Kent river has determined what you can say about yourself. 

Born north of the River Medway you are a Kentish Man or Maid; born south you become a Man (or Maid) of Kent.

Barges on the River Medway at Allington

In Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene (1590-6),  the main character the flowery lady Florimell languishes in a dungeon, while the old and bearded River Thames gets married to the lovely young River Medway:

a solemne feast was there
To all the Sea-gods and their fruitfull seede,
In honour of the spousalls, which then were
Betwixt the Medway and the Thames agreed.
Long had the Thames (as we in records reed)
Before that day her wooed to his bed;
But the proud Nymph would for no worldly meed,
Nor no entreatie to his loue be led;
Till now at last relenting, she to him was wed.

Map of the principle rivers in Kent.

The Medway runs from Turner's Hill in West Sussex to its mouth on the Thames estuary near Sheerness.

In 1942 the first test of a submarine pipeline was carried out across the Medway in Operation Pluto. Pluto (pipeline under the ocean) played a vital part in the 1944 WWII allied troop invasion of France.

Photo attributions:

• Video ex YouTube - Gerry and the Pacemakers, Ferry Across the Mersey
• River Mersey Liverpool: 28 June 2005 by Tagishsimm - CC BY-SA 3.0 licence
• Barges on the River Medway at Allington: 27 March 2006 by Ian Dunster - CC BY 3.0 licence
• Map of principle rivers in Kent: 1 June 2007 by Clem Rutter, Rochester, Kent - CC BY 3.0 licence