Newspapers often focused on her uniqueness as a female carillonneur, and in 1937 The Washington Post highlighted her habit of wearing shorts or riding breeches in order to play the carillon pedalboard.

[8] Seeking to establish higher visibility in a field that remained largely closed to women, she appeared on Pathé News in the 1950 newsreel "'Moo-Sic' Till The Cows Come Home," playing her mobile carillon for cows on the Manor Farm in Thorpe, Surrey.

[5] Johnson was received by Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House on her first American tour in 1937,[9][4] and performed at the baptism of Prince Charles in 1948.

[7] As a member of the family business Gillett & Johnston bellfoundry, she gave concerts on temporary carillon installations at the Newcastle Exhibition Park, in Hyde Park where her audience was estimated to number over 100,000, and for Prince George.

She inaugurated a carillon-like installation, played from the theater organ console, at the Regal Cinema in London.