See Shaniqua’s latest activity and read her specially commissioned poem

Join Shaniqua on a trip down memory lane with Oh Winterbourne.

Sislin Fay Allen came to England from Jamaica in 1962. She was the first black woman to work for the Metropolitan police.

Hear and read Shaniqua explore the life of Sislin through poetry.

Shaniqua delves into her first response to the Croydon Art Collection which is the painting ‘An Egyptian’ by Franz Xaver Kosler (1864 - 1905).

Hi everyone, I’m Shaniqua Benjamin, Croydon’s first ever Poet Laureate. Weird to say, right?

Well, I still find it weird, because I’ll always be little Shaniqua from Thornton Heath.