Then the women put their hands into their near-empty pockets for a collection for Bosnia.A batch of European Union emergency supplies has arrived, tins of stewed steak are dished out "It's probably horsemeat," calls out one woman. "No," shouts back another woman, "that's chopped scabs in a can, that is ... I wish."Another woman says that the day before she had got into her car determined to "go round to every scab's house and say to them, look what you're doing to us" but she burst into tears and went home instead."It is very, very hard for everyone," says Jimmy Nolan, chairman of the shop stewards, "but don't you worry about us. In 1989, Liverpool was the last city to give up the strike during the National Dock Labour dispute. "It has suffered years of severe poverty and unemployment, coupled with ridicule from the rest of Britain.

Their past has given them a sense of solidarity, attaching a `strong under adversity' label to the city. "For decades, Liverpool has effectively been a city under siege," she says. Without the unquestioning support of the community, I doubt the dispute could have continued this long."Ms Kennedy is wary of invoking Liverpudlian stereotypes, "whether the happy-smile comedian or the lazy, feckless scouser", but she believes there is a unique cultural identity on Merseyside. "An unusual aspect of this dispute is the role played by culture," she says. "The collective history of the docks - an organised, solid, militant history - may no longer be based in a geographical community, but it is still very powerful. But it is the dockers' bitter heritage which has kept the dispute running for 650 days.Jane Kennedy, a lecturer in social policy at Liverpool University and co-author of Solidarity on the Waterfront: The Liverpool Docks Lock Out, says an understanding of dock life is vital. our position remains exactly the same."The dockers may not have mainstream political support, but help has come from unusual quarters.

Last week, 30 ports throughout the world stopped work for 24 hours in solidarity, paralysing the US East Coast. Money comes in steadily from South Africa, where trade unionists remember the dockers' support of their activists during the apartheid era. Last week a former miner's wife, aged 84, turned up at the picket line with the savings her late husband had left her for emergencies, to give to the dockers' families. Young people from the new-roads protest movement, including Reclaim the Streets, have been to Liverpool to occupy the MDHC offices. "We don't want their money." Men from outside who took the 40 jobs are already being laid off, he says.Senior MDHC managers were unavailable for comment last week, but a company statement said: "We have made an offer of pounds 28,000 ... For ourselves, for our children, for trade unionism." At least, say the dockers, the MDHC is still making them "final" offers.