Watson had wanted to write a fun story after her work on two dramas. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day was Watson's third novel and was initially rejected. With the exception of Miss Pettigrew, all of Watson's novels are set in the countryside. ) Her second novel, Odd Shoes was published in 1936. ( Fell Top was the kind of rustic novel that Stella Gibbons parodied in her novel Cold Comfort Farm.

Reviewers were impressed with Fell Top and it was adapted into a BBC radio play.

The publisher, Methuen, accepted Fell Top (which was published in 1935) and asked if there were any more manuscripts. 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. 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. She died in Newcastle upon Tyne on 5 August 2002. All my creative energy went into Keith.' Other times, however, she said she had written all she wanted to write. It became impossible to write in a strange house with only one room for us all and my mother living with us, too. She stated it was these circumstances that made it impossible to write: 'I just quit. After the bombing, she, her mother and the family next door moved in with Watson's in-laws. A bomb destroyed the house next door and the fireplace was blown onto his cot. Watson had put him upstairs but he was fussy so she brought him downstairs. They had one son, Keith, born in 1941, who survived the Blitz by pure chance. Watson married Leslie Pickering, manager of a local timber firm, in January 1936. So I wrote the whole book in the office.' Watson once said: 'The person I worked for never gave me any work until the afternoon-he told me to bring some knitting in. She began working as a typist to help support the family. 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. Winifred Watson was born at Whitley Bay near Newcastle and educated at St Ronan's, a boarding school at Berwick-upon-Tweed.

She is best known for her 1938 novel, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, which was adapted into a 2008 film of the same name. Winifred Eileen Watson (20 October 1906 – 5 August 2002) was an English writer.

Winifred watson miss pettigrew