A small town festival has just become an international event.

Maryport's Over Here Over There exhibition has been listed as an event in the Japan-UK Season of Culture which means it will be promoted by the Japanese Embassy to visitors from that country coming to the UK.

The attraction is that the exhibition will feature photographs and information about Maryport's Walker brothers, Robert and Wilson who are credited with supervising the development of the modern Japanese merchant navy.

On top of that, Wilson Walker jointly founded the Japan Brewery Company which produced Kirin beer - still the most popular brand in the country.

The Maryport men travelled to Japan when that country was still mostly closed to foreigners but when the Government realised that they needed modernisation to compete with the new industrial world of stream.

Wilson married Charlotte, the daughter of a Dutch businessman. They had seven children and he died in Ngasaki in 1914.

Robert married a Japanese woman, Fukuda Sato, known as Sato. who gave him nine children. The couple used to visit Maryport regularly. It is during one of these visits that Sato died and is buried in St Mary's church yard.

The men's story will be told at Over Here Over There, an exhibition by the Maryport Maritime Museum in partnership with the Settlement on Castle Hill.

Spokeswoman Linda Wyatt said: "The exhibition celebrates immigration in Victorian Maryport.

"It will feature some of the people who left Maryport and made a name for themselves and the ones who came here and did the same."

The exhibition will be held at the Settlement on September 28 to 29.