Tireless charity worker a Leither right to the end

Published on Tuesday 13 May 2008 10:53

JANET RENNIE, a veteran of the Women's Royal Naval Service and a tireless charity campaigner, has died at 87.

A PROUD Leither, Janet Rennie – born Janet Paton – refused to stand by and watch during the early years of the Second World War. She signed up with the Women's Royal Naval Service, affectionately known as the Wrens, and soon qualified as a petty officer, although her gender meant she was not allowed formally to take up the position.

The organisation, which helped women take on traditional male jobs to allow sailors to return to sea service, stationed Janet in Granton and later in Ayr.

When her beloved Leith was bombed, she was off duty and helped tend the wounded at the Leith First Aid Centre. She pitched in to help as the bomb injured came pouring in, unaware that the same blast had damaged her own house in Admiralty Street.

Her involvement with the Wrens lasted long after the war and nearly to the end of her life.

Proud of her achievements and of the group, she faithfully attended monthly meetings, even after blindness meant she had to be given a lift by another member.

Even her wedding preparations took a back seat to her dedication to the war effort – she returned to Leith a day before she married Frank Rennie, just in time to see her wedding dress for the very first time.

The young couple soon started their own business, a newsagents and tobacconist shop in Northfield Broadway.

Later Janet took a position as manager of the shop at Edinburgh College of Art – a position she held until the late 1980s.

She found a niche for herself with the students and lecturers, often helping professors source materials for their projects and commissions.

In her spare time she supported her husband in his musical endeavours, sewing costumes and selling tickets after he founded the Dunbar Lyric Group.

Janet also had a passion for helping charities, starting from when she helped her mother with the Leith Lunch Club.

When her first son, Colin, was born in 1947 with spina bifida and died only ten months later, she and her husband worked to support research into what was then a relatively unknown condition.

She was later inspired to support the Area 5 Action Group – an organisation that campaigns for those with Down's Syndrome, after her grandson was born with that condition. But the greatest share of her charitable involvement was behind the counter of a shop supporting Save the Children, for which she earned a certificate recognising her dedication.

Janet spent her life all over Edinburgh but she died in Leith on April 21, appropriately for someone so proud of her origins there. She leaves three sons, four grandchildren and several nieces and nephews.