Camden News: Rosie Ashworth | Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day

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Camden News - by DAN CARRIER
Published: 14 August 2008

Rosie Ashworth, of Persephone Books, with a copy of Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day

Happy ending as book is revived for big screen

IT’S a long-forgotten novel that tells the story of a prim governess called Miss Pettigrew and her adventures following her employer, a whimsical night club singer, through the champagne salons of 1930s London.
But thanks to a Holborn book shop a film version of a book written 70 years ago hits the big screens tomorrow (Friday).
And while Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day is a modern version of Cinderella, how it was resurrected from the shelves of second-hand book stores and snapped up by by film-makers is itself a fairytale.
Persephone Books in Lambs Conduit Street was established in 2001 by Hampstead writer Nicola Beauman, with the idea of finding
out-of-print books by women which may have been neglected.
Retired university lecturer Henrietta Twycross-Martin brought a copy of the novel into the shop and suggested Mrs Beauman might like to reprint it. It was then picked up by a film studio.
Mrs Beauman said: “She said it was her mother’s favourite book and, after I read it, I could see why. But it had been out of print for decades.”
Ms Twycross-Martin tracked down the author, Winifred Watson, 93, who had a brief career as a novelist from 1935 to 1939. She wrote six books while working as a secretary.
The film stars Oscar-winning actress Frances McDormand and has been a hit in the States.
Mrs Beauman added: “It is a classic of the period. We were delighted it has been made into a film.”
Producer Stephen Garrett said the story fits audiences 70 years after it was first published.
“Winifred was a bit ahead of her time,” he said. “Her books were about women changing their lives, flouting convention and addressing class tensions and
extra-marital sex.”
The author’s son Keith Pickering added: “She told me she had written Miss Pettigrew in six weeks, start to finish.”

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