I live in Saltdean, where by far the largest building is the Grand Ocean Hotel.

The Daily Express recently described it as a "luxurious, £100-a-day hotel", which is laughable.

It is a place of fading charm, with peeling paint over much of the outside. It has a shabby swimming pool where I have often been swimming with my children, while occasi-onal quiz evenings and line-dancing classes take place in the "ballroom".

The clientele seems to be mainly coachloads of elderly people from the North: the latest Shearings Catalogue offers a package of four nights including travel and excursions from £185.

A leaflet was pushed through my door calling for people to demonstrate outside the hotel against the plan. Headed "Saltdean is not Sangatte", it invited people to "an official and peaceful protest". The leaflet went on: "This protest has been organised by residents of Saltdean and is in no way connected with the British National Party or National Front."

I was determined not to sit quietly in my house while such a protest was happening so near to us. With some people who had contacted me, and another family who felt the same as us, we prepared

a few placards saying: "Saltdean have a heart", "People not profit" and "What price do you put on human lives?". The main body of protesters had posters with "House values will fall" and "Saltdean can't cope".

We were met with loud boos, expressions casting doubt on our sanity and so on. I had prepared some leaflets called "Myths and facts about asylum and immigration", extracted from a web page put up by the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns. A few people took them and looked at them, others tore them up and threw them back at us. The verbal abuse was particularly strong against my 14-year-old daughter and her friend. People swore, shouted abuse and screamed in their faces. One woman who walked with a pro-refugee placard near the main body of protesters was attacked by a group of men who hit her with their placards until the police intervened.

In the afternoon, I went to a meeting of the Saltdean Residents' Association mostly about this issue. There were about 100 people there, most of them elderly couples who had not been on the protest in the morning.

The local Labour MP, Des Turner, said: "We don't think the Ocean Hotel is an appropriate place to house asylum-seekers for a number of reasons" and "I shall try to prevent any contract being signed for Saltdean".

During the 1997 election, I was a member of the Labour Party. Our house acted as the committee rooms from where people were organised to take numbers outside polling booths and to encourage people to turn out to vote Labour.

Mr Turner visited us late in the day, thanked us, shook our hands and was elected to the House of Commons. Since then, I have left the Labour Party (the decision to cut benefits to disabled people was the last straw). I am appalled Mr Turner should adopt this position.

He has made it clear he hopes racists will not use the protest as an opportunity to promote their views. Well, I've got news for you, Des. The BNP has already leafleted houses in Saltdean. Several of them were at the protest. If you had been there, you would have been on their side of the road. I didn't work to get you into Parliament so you could do things like that.

At the meeting, I eventually got a chance to speak and said two things: First, I was not there to call anyone a racist and, second, I disagreed with the protest against housing asylum-seekers in Saltdean. I believe the fears of some local residents are groundless and I intend to talk to people over the coming months and show them they have nothing to worry about.

Saltdean is actually a very sensible place to house asylum-seekers. We have a park, an outdoor swimming pool, a library, the beach and a cliff-top walk nearby and a large parade of shops next to the hotel which sell all the basics. If I was the Government and looking for somewhere to put refugees for induction courses, large, under-used seaside hotels are an obvious choice.

I am confident the fears can be allayed and views changed. I intend to be calm, friendly and approachable, while remaining totally convinced the fears are groundless.

This is a citywide issue, not just one for Saltdean. Some local councillors from the Greens, Lib Dems and Labour have been very supportive about welcoming refugees to the city.

-Raphael Salkie, R.M.Salkie@bton.ac.uk