How Angela is turning a lifetime of values into a lasting legacy

Angela Catley was 15 years old when she talked her way out of games lessons. Angela persuaded her deputy headteacher to let her swap games lessons completely to volunteer at a day centre for people with learning disabilities. She didn’t know it then, but that decision would shape the rest of her life.

“It started to shape what I wanted to be and do.” 

More than forty years later, its influence is seen in the legacy she is creating.

Angela’s curiosity began in Yorkshire, long before she knew where it would take her. Her family were rooted in this region; mam was a chef and later postwoman from Teesside and her dad, a firefighter with roots in Hull and Scarborough. From an early age, she was a challenge – determined, inquisitive and never afraid to ask questions.

“Why is it like that?” 

“Why can’t it be different?” 

At 18 Angela left home and moved to Hull where she trained as a nurse for people with learning disabilities. There, she worked in a large long-stay hospital where hundreds of people with learning disabilities lived apart from their communities. This experience stayed with her. She saw how easily people could be pushed to the margins.

“I know where the slippery slopes lead,” she recalls.

It was also in Hull that she met Howard. Together they built a life rooted in shared values. Over the years, Angela’s work took her across the charity and care sectors and over time, one belief came to define her work.

“People have gifts. People have value. And communities are more powerful than we often realise.” 

Angela laughs when she reflects on how often people look upwards for answers, assuming someone in authority must have everything sorted. What she has realised is that nobody has it sorted. For her, that realisation was not discouraging, but liberating. If nobody else has all the answers, communities don’t need to wait. People can create change themselves.

That belief eventually led her to support Community Catalysts founder and inspiration Sian Lockwood, an organisation dedicated to helping local people create their own solutions and strengthen their communities.

“The power is in people. The power is in communities.” 

When Angela talks about legacy, she does not begin with money; she begins with a photograph. A friend recently sent her pictures from the early 1990s and in one image, pinned to a kitchen cupboard, was a Garfield poster she had long forgotten. Underneath the cartoon cat were the words “I want to leave paw prints on the sands of time”. Seeing it again stopped her in her tracks.

“I think there was always something in me that wanted to make a difference. Not fame. Not recognition. Just the desire for life to have purpose.”

Angela and Howard chose not to have children. For many people, family becomes the way their story is carried forward. Without that, Angela found herself thinking differently about what legacy could look like; one not defined by family structure.

“When you don’t have that physical legacy, you’ve got to create something else.” 

That question eventually led to the creation of the Seed and Spark Fund with Two Ridings Community Foundation.

The Seed and Spark Fund will be created through a six-figure gift in Angela’s Will and, when the time comes, is expected to provide tens of thousands of pounds in grants to local communities year after year. Angela wanted to know that her values would continue to make a difference long into the future.

Two Ridings Community Foundation will steward the Fund on her behalf, investing it and distributing grants from it year after year. Community foundations exist to help people create lasting local impact, and a number of individuals choose to support future generations in this way, knowing their support will benefit future generations and the communities they care about most.

The fund reflects everything Angela has learned and the values she and Howard shared. That small acts can have extraordinary consequences. She talks about a man with a learning disability who used a small grant to organise a chocolate party for his neighbours. A simple idea that brought people together. She talks about people using modest amounts of funding to brighten their streets, create welcoming spaces and strengthen community connections.

To Angela, these are not small things.

A little money sparks an idea.

A bigger idea becomes connection.

Connection becomes community.

“Most people are fantastic,” she says, “Given an opportunity they’ll create something amazing.”

The fund is also rooted in the people who shaped Angela. Her father encouraged her curiosity, taught her about, society, humanity, fairness and always stood up for the underdog. Today he lives with dementia, but his values continue to guide her.  Her Mam always encouraged her to be herself and was a role model for strong, independent women.

And then there is Howard, who was tragically killed in a car accident in 2009. Part of the wealth that will one day fund Seed and Spark is part of his legacy too.

There is something fitting, too, about its home at Two Ridings Community Foundation. Angela’s roots are in North Yorkshire and Howard’s were in East Yorkshire; the geography of Two Ridings mirrors the lives they built together and the communities that shaped them.

“It looks like me. It looks like us.” 

Through the Seed and Spark Fund, both will remain part of those communities and their future. Long after Angela is gone, grants made in their names will help local people turn ideas into action, strengthen community connections and create opportunities for others to flourish.

Perhaps that is what a meaningful legacy really is, not simply leaving money behind but creating something that carries your values and actions in life forward.

Angela has been asking questions since she was five years old. Decades later, she is still asking them. Why do we assume legacy has to follow the same path? Why do we not think differently about the future we want to create?

For Angela, the answer is simple. A legacy should reflect your values. It should tell your story. It should carry forward what matters most to you.

Her parents taught her about independent thought, fairness and equality. Howard taught her about people and partnership. Her life’s work taught her that communities are capable of extraordinary things.

The Seed and Spark Fund brings all three together. It is not built around wealth or recognition. It is rooted in possibility, people and one simple belief…

“That most people are fantastic. Sometimes all they need is a small spark to prove it.”