There was a time when ‘boat people’ were welcomed to the UK

Back in the 1970s the arrival of Vietnamese refugees in Kent was widely covered by the media and generated great sympathy in the UK. It’s a very different story today. In this extract from his latest book, ‘Borderland’, Phil Hubbard looks at identity and belonging at the edge of the country

An estimated 19,000 Vietnamese refugees were resettled in the UK between 1979 and 1990 (Getty)

A few miles along the coast from Folkestone, Hythe is its sleepier, smaller and more conservative neighbour. One of the original Cinque Ports, given privileges by a 12th-century royal charter, its role diminished as longshore drift created a shingle bar across the town’s harbour. Despite continuing efforts to maintain the harbour, by the 18th century it was abandoned, with those employed as seamen switching to fishing, marine salvage, brewing and, in some cases, smuggling (always important in this corner of Kent).

Today the former harbour is lost beneath multiple housing and industrial developments. Coastal retreat also means that the town’s attractive, long High Street stands a considerable distance from the shore, separated from it by elegant Victorian sports pitches and Edwardian villas, as well as the 92-bedroom Imperial Hotel. This hotel, opened by the Prince of Wales in 1880, was requisitioned as a gun emplacement by the Home Guard in the Second World War, at which point the neighbouring golf course was turned into a minefield. The restored golf course is a selling point for a new “lifestyle” seafront development of three-storey townhouses aimed squarely at the retirement market, with lifts integrated as standard: semi-detached three-bedroom homes here sell for upwards of £600,000.

Another controversial development of 150 homes has been approved further along Prince’s Parade, suggesting that additional gentrification of this part of the coast is imminent.