Winifred Eileen Watson (20 October 1906 – 5 August 2002) was an English writer. She is best known for her 1938 novel, ''

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day ''Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day'' is a 2008 romantic comedy film directed by Bharat Nalluri, starring Frances McDormand and Amy Adams. The screenplay by David Magee and Simon Beaufoy is based on the 1938 novel of the same name by Winifred W ...

'', which was adapted into a 2008 film of the same name.

Biography

Winifred Watson was born at

Whitley Bay Whitley Bay is a seaside town in the North Tyneside borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It formerly governed as part of Northumberland and has been part of Tyne and Wear since 1974. It is part of the wider Tyneside built-up area, being around e ...

near

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

and educated at St Ronan's, a boarding school at

Berwick-upon-Tweed Berwick-upon-Tweed (), sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, and the northernmost town in England. The 2011 United Kingdom census reco ...

."Winifred Watson"
"The Telegraph", 9 September 2002. Retrieved 12 February 2011. She lived most of her life in Newcastle. Although she was expected to attend university, as her sisters had, she was unable to because of the impact of the Depression on her father's shoe business. She began working as a typist to help support the family. Watson once said: "The person I worked for never gave me any work until the afternoon—he told me to bring some knitting in. So I wrote the whole book in the office.""Winifred Watson – Obituary"
"The Independent", 20 August 2002. Retrieved 12 February 2011. She died in Newcastle upon Tyne on 5 August 2002.

Works

Her first novel, ''Fell Top'', was written in part as a result of a dare from her brother-in-law after she remarked that what she was reading was rubbish and she could do better herself.Seba, Anne

"The Times", 13 November 2000. Retrieved 12 February 2011. After finishing ''Fell Top'', she put the manuscript away and did not attempt to publish until years later when her sister saw an advertisement from a publisher. The publisher, Methuen, accepted ''Fell Top'' (which was published in 1935) and asked if there were any more manuscripts. Reviewers were impressed with ''Fell Top'' and it was adapted into a BBC radio play. (''Fell Top'' was the kind of rustic novel that Stella Gibbons parodied in her novel ''

Cold Comfort Farm ''Cold Comfort Farm'' is a comic novel by English author Stella Gibbons, published in 1932. It parodies the romanticised, sometimes doom-laden accounts of rural life popular at the time, by writers such as Mary Webb. Plot summary Following ...

''.Watson, Winifred
"Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day"
Persephone Books, 2008, p. iii.) Her second novel, ''Odd Shoes'' was published in 1936. With the exception of ''Miss Pettigrew'', all of Watson's novels are set in the countryside. ''

'' was Watson's third novel and was initially rejected. Watson had wanted to write a fun story after her work on two dramas. She and her publisher compromised and she agreed to write another drama set in the country similar to her previous work (''Upyonder'', published in 1938) if they would publish ''Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day''. As Watson predicted, ''Miss Pettigrew'' was an immediate success—in Britain, Australia and the United States. It was translated and published in France, and was about to be printed in Germany when World War II started. A musical film version was planned, starring

Billie Burke Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke (August 7, 1884 – May 14, 1970) was an American actress who was famous on Broadway and radio, and in silent and sound films. She is best known to modern audiences as Glinda the Good Witch of the North ...

as Miss Pettigrew, but

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the R ...

put paid to that. "I wish the Japanese had waited six months," Watson said 60 years later. Watson married Leslie Pickering, manager of a local timber firm, in January 1936. They had one son, Keith, born in 1941, who survived the

Blitz Blitz, German for "lightning", may refer to: Military uses *Blitzkrieg, blitz campaign, or blitz, a type of military campaign *The Blitz, the German aerial campaign against Britain in the Second World War *, an Imperial German Navy light cruiser b ...

by pure chance. Watson had put him upstairs but he was fussy so she brought him downstairs. A bomb destroyed the house next door and the fireplace was blown onto his cot. Being downstairs, he survived. After the bombing, she, her mother and the family next door moved in with Watson's in-laws. She stated it was these circumstances that made it impossible to write: "I just quit. It became impossible to write in a strange house with only one room for us all and my mother living with us, too. All my creative energy went into Keith." Other times, however, she said she had written all she wanted to write. She published her sixth and final novel, ''Leave and Bequeath'', in 1943.

Persephone Books ''Persephone Books'' is an independent publisher based in Bath, England. Founded in 1999 by Nicola Beauman, Persephone Books reprints works largely by women writers of the late 19th and 20th century, though a few books by men are included. Th ...

published ''

'' first in 2001, then in 2003, 2004, and 2005, and finally as a Persephone Classic in 2008 with a preface by Henrietta Twycross-Martin. The film ''

'' was released in 2008 with

Frances McDormand Frances Louise McDormand (born Cynthia Ann Smith; June 23, 1957) is an American actress and producer. Throughout her career spanning over four decades, McDormand has received numerous accolades, including four Academy Awards, two Primetime Emm ...

in the lead role and

Amy Adams Amy Lou Adams (born August 20, 1974) is an American actress. Known for both her comedic and dramatic roles, she has been featured three times in annual rankings of the world's highest-paid actresses. She has received various accolades, incl ...

as Delysia Lafosse.

Bibliography

* ''Fell Top'' (1935) * ''Odd Shoes'' (1936) * ''Hop, Step, Jump'' (1939) * ''Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day'' (1938) * ''Upyonder'' (1938) * ''Leave and Bequeath'' (1943)

References

External links

Focus Features profile''Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day'' at IMDb
*

' at Persephone Books {{DEFAULTSORT:Watson, Winifred 1906 births 2002 deaths 20th-century British novelists People from Whitley Bay Writers from Tyne and Wear