As a busy young mother, my sister, Penny Johnstone, who has died aged 76, followed in her own mother’s footsteps by collecting for the NSPCC. This led to her becoming a member of the charity’s central executive committee in the 1980s.
In 1986 she was appointed the first director of the pioneering Greater Bristol Trust (now the Quartet Community Foundation), a grant-making institution enabling donors to fund projects in their local communities. She began by winning a challenge grant, sponsored by the Mott Foundation and Charities Aid Foundation, raising £1.3m, which was matched with a further £666,000. Today the foundation has made local grants of more than £40m and built a permanent endowment of £24m. The publicity surrounding the original challenge kick-started the community foundation movement, and there are now 46 foundations across the UK.
Another abiding interest was contemporary crafts, and in 1990 she became the first executive trustee of the Theo Moorman Trust for Weavers.
To me, one of two younger brothers, Pen was simply a sister, and then the wonderful mother of a trio of engaging daughters. I knew that she was bright in every sense of the word, that she was a generous and accurate present giver, that she kept friends for life, and that she had style and a talent for listening, but Pen the executive high flyer was far less evident at home.
Penny was born in Scotland, the eldest child of Robbie and Aileen Sloan (nee Henry), at our paternal grandparents’ house in Helensburgh, but grew up near Weymouth, Dorset, where our father was a GP. After Thornlow school, Weymouth and Godolphin school, Salisbury, Penny trained and practised as a speech therapist, before marrying David Johnstone in 1962.
She decided at the age of 56 to deal with her regret at never having been to university: she achieved a first in English at Exeter, followed by an MA at Bristol. She later reinvented herself again as a photographer, a talent which she used primarily as a means of connecting with people. She took portraits of local people, and wrote profiles about them, for the Marshwood Vale magazine.
Penny was an extremely active 75 year old when she contracted ovarian cancer. She had a rotten year, in and out of hospital, but despite her own troubles maintained throughout her unwavering interest in and concern for others.
She is survived by David, her daughters, Harriet, Jess and Bryony, and six grandchildren.
