From the Dover Mercury, 1 August, 2002.

ANALYSIS by SIMON FINLAY.

Save our streets call at East Cliff.

The small collection of individuals who waved placards last Friday did so when their week's work was done.

It was a good-natured display of English bolshiness by the seafront cottages, complete with hanging baskets.

East Cliff is like no place on earth, marooned between the largest and busiest passenger port in Europe and more than a stone's lob from the rest of central Dover.

The focal point for its residents is the First and Last pub, which enjoys a unique position as the only one in its immediate area.

Its landlady, Mel Perkins, is a blunt Northern Irishwoman from a village not far from the province's port, Larne. She is not happy.

"No one asked us if we wanted more asylum seekers. Of course we're suspicious - wouldn't you be?

"We keep saying it and we hope someone will listen. We're not saying we don't want any or we want less. We just don't want any more."

Mrs Perkins pulls no punches and her County Antrim accent certainly underlines her annoyance.

When her German shepherd dog, Sam, was run over at the weekend, the people of East Cliff grieved along with Mel and her husband Paul. No one could believe it.

It is that kind of place. Not so long ago, Migrant Helpline started using the cheap hotel accommodation to house asylum seekers and while that decision was hardly as welcome as a summer breeze, they have learned to live with it. Mrs Perkins makes a valid point when she says that Folkestone Road is a larger area in which to concentrate asylum seekers.

"Migrant Helpline says that they will be kept busy all day. Fair enough, what will they be doing at night? Where will they go to?

"It just doesn't seem to have been thought through. Yet we are the ones who might suffer."

In all truth, Migrant Helpline is on a hiding to nothing - damned if they do and damned if they don't.

It is very hard to imagine that the Home Office-funded charity has gone out of its way to deliberately irritate the 141 people who live there

Clearly, the situation on the Folkestone Road could not be allowed to continue, and any resolution to the problem - if you see it as one - is bound to cause conflict.

To take the 195 who may be housed in East Cliff to another town and the effect would have been exactly the same or worse.

When that point is made to the group's head of development Tony Fuller, a reasonable and personable New Zealander, he holds his hands up as if to concede it.

His responses were well prepared when a journalist from this newspaper visited the charity's headquarters on the day it exclusively broke the East Cliff story.

In fact, Migrant Helpline has been on a charm offensive - 'offensive' being the operative word, according to one East Cliff resident - of late. And there are many in the Priory and East Cliff areas who remain wary because of it. A long-suffering resident of Folkestone Road put it thus: "Don't trust 'em. On anything."

Dover and Deal MP Gwyn Prosser admits Migrant Helpline has 'not bad a good record when it comes to informing or consulting.

Which, one would suspect in the eyes of East Cliff residents, is a bit rich since Mr Prosser was informed of and consulted about their plans, but chose not to share them.

The conspiracy theorists have enjoyed an open season. One notion is that moving the asylum seekers out of a safe but beleaguered Labour area into a safe Tory area solves the problems.

The council seats up for grabs next May would be retained by Labour, and the MP can take some of the credit for sorting out a five-year problem in a Labour heartland while a Tory area picks up the problem.

It is unlikely such detailed social and demographic planning went into it.

It was more likely that three hotels were found near the dock in an area - with asylum seekers already resident - which happened to be Tory. The most vocal of the two Tory councillors.

Nigel Collor, seems content to stand on the sidelines while the residents make their point. He hopes to change Migrant Helpline's mind in some other way.

The residents can do little but hope that Migrant Helpline will relent to their wishes at the eleventh hour, but that seems unlikely.

From the Dover Mercury, 22 August, 2002.

ANALYSIS by SIMON FINLAY.

Meet the voice of the people

You take a volatile situation in a quiet residential corner of town, add a measure of fear for the future among the neighbours and stir in some rumours, you get a potentially dangerous cocktail. But don't worry, landlady Mel Perkins is around to keep things in hand, says SIMON FINLAY.

MEL Perkins life has always had a peripheral link with the sea and ports.

As landlady of the First And Last pub in East Cliff by the eastern docks she has become the unlikely leader of a group of residents not best pleased at the idea of 50 asylum seekers being foisted on her tiny neighbourhood.

But the link goes further back to her Northern Irish roots.

She was born in Leeds in 1973, but her parents moved home and eventually settled in the tiny village of Ballycarry, nor far from the province's biggest passenger ferry port at Larne.

"Larne is a very different place but I think I understand port people and it is probably why I feel so at home here in Dover. I love the people of this town."

She sees the redevelopment of Larne as a handy pointer to what can be done and is equally impressed by the work done in nearby Carrickfergus - which also boasts a seaside castle - to make full use of resources.

"The other weekend when the regatta was on, you could see the beginnings of a really good idea for somewhere like Dover. It is such a brilliant idea.

"If that sort of atmosphere could be extended through the whole of the summer, we'd get a lot more visitors and that would bring so much revenue to the town.

"The seafront is one of the best assets that we have and I just think that it could be used more."

Mel returned to England ten years ago and quickly found there was not the 'hassle' one might expect from life in Northern Ireland.

This is fairly typically understated shorthand that Ulstermen and women use as an extreme euphemism and something which must not be explored.

But, suffice it to say, Mel Perkins has suffered more than most.

"People say the English are reserved. In a way they are but that is true of every nationality I have ever met, so I think it is a misrepresentation.

"Go to any country in the world and you will find happy people, grumpy people and shy people. People are people."

Mel worked as a chef to Channel Tunnel workers when she first arrived and saw the Queen when at the official opening in 1994.

She married Paul at Dover register office in May 1997 and their young son Billy was Christened in Ballycarry, largely to 'go with the flow' of her parents.

She observes: "Back home you've not really arrived in the world until you've been Christened."

Paul has the rather more dubious distinction of being remembered for breaking a leg jumping up and down on the garage roof opposite the pub when England beat Argentina in the World Cup this summer.

The Dover Express billboard poster to that effect is hung on the wall with no embarrassment whatsoever.

"I love him to pieces. We've been together for nine years now and I like his sense of humour and he's got a great personality. A great all-rounder."

Circumstances have thrown Mel into the spotlight and it is one she would rather not be in.

Her characteristic bluntness may not be to everyone's taste but there is never anything other than honest opinion if it is asked for.

She pays constant tribute to Christine Shrubb and Debbie Stephenson and other 'neighbours and friends' for their support - but she treats them all as equals in the fight against the plans to house more asylum seekers in East Cliff.

In fact, many of the most vociferous in the protest hardly fit the bill of rabble-rousers they are just normal people who feel their little corner of Dover will be changed for ever.

"I don't see myself as the leader because I am not the leader. I have merely let the pub be used as a meeting-place."

But it was Mel who tried, and succeeded, in calming tensions when an incident at one of the hotels recently led to false speculation spreading like wildfire around the neighbourhood.

Yesterday morning, Mel and three other residents were due to meet Dover and Deal MP Gwyn Prosser.

"People mustn't get the wrong idea of us. We were not consulted properly and have been totally railroaded into this. We feel we don't have any alternative but to fight our corner - what else can we do?"