Grandpa's Cat is among the much-loved children's books written by Joy Watson. Photo / Supplied
(Valerie) Joy Watson, (b) 1938–(d) 2021
Joy Watson, author of the much-loved Grandpa's series, passed away in Havelock North on October 4, 2021.
Watson wrote a total of 15 books for children, as well as a musical, The Circus, and many poems and nonsense rhymes, which are published in anthologies.
However, it is the iconic Grandpa stories, based loosely on her husband, Kevin, that have most endured. The story goes that one day, when Kevin rested his feet on the hearth to warm them, Joy said, "You need new slippers, there's holes in the soles and the stitching has come undone. I can see your toes".
Kevin supposedly replied, "Leave my slippers alone, that's just how I like them". Watson thought, there's a story in that, and so began the series of books that have become iconic for generations of children, worldwide.
Valerie Joy Evans was born in Gisborne in 1938 to Phillip and Emily Evans. Phil Evans was a farm manager and he and Emily, with their four children, Joy, and three brothers, Rex, Steuart and Neil, shifted around where there was work, from Wairoa to Central Hawke's Bay, particularly Waipukurau, Tikokino and Ongaonga.
It was a busy, happy, but lean childhood, and the gathering and telling of stories featured in their everyday lives. Watson went to St Mary's College in Wellington and then trained as a school dental nurse.
A fortuitous attendance at a dance at the Mokotahi Hall at Mahia Beach, one New Year's Eve, meant she met her future husband, Kevin Watson. It was the beginning of a great partnership.
After their wedding and a brief stint in Kaponga, Kevin and Joy moved to Hastings where he set up his business, Watson's Pharmacy. They went on to have nine children, Elizabeth, Mary-anne, Jane, John, Catherine, Helen, Judith, Paula and Leo.
In terms of their mother's writing, they remember her firstly as an avid reader, a book propped in front of her whenever there was a lull in chores. She began writing rhymes for their birthday parties and the clues were just cryptic enough to give her a fifteen-minute respite as they tried to decipher them.
She was known for her zany sense of humour and over the years she would have fun twisting ideas to entertain them all. She was delighted by any sort of word play and car trips were full of tongue twisters, puns, stories and songs. Then a writing workshop, using the seed of the idea about the slippers, began a rich and varied writing career that continued for many years.
Grandpa's Slippers was first published by Scholastic New Zealand in 1989 and Watson went on to write Grandpa's Shorts, Grandpa's Cardigan, Grandpa's Shed and Grandpa's Cat.
Penny Scown has said: "With nearly half a million books in print across the series, Joy Watson's Grandpa books are some of New Zealand's all-time bestselling children's picture books."
Written with her wry sense of humour, the books have resonated with thousands of children and their parents, and are a wonderful legacy to the world of New Zealand publishing.
The five books were illustrated by Wendy Hodder and, like most picture books, the illustrations of Grandpa, Grandma, and their all-seeing cat, have become as recognisable as the text. Grandpa's Slippers won the Gaelyn Gordon Award for a Much-Loved Book in 2000 and Grandpa's Shorts won the Children's Choice award in 2002. The five titles have also been published in te reo Māori.
Watson was a regular visitor to schools as an author for the Writers in Schools programme and she sometimes even took a reasonably agreeable Grandpa, in his slippers, along for the visit. Often before or after a visit to a classroom, she would collect the names of the children and write a rhyming poem that included every one of the students.
To her own children, Joy Watson was a fair, approachable and gentle mother. She was up at daybreak every day making porridge, ironing school uniforms or sewing clothes. She played netball and tennis with them, ferried them to music lessons and activities and encouraged their reading.
Joy is survived by her nine children, twenty-eight grandchildren and ten great grandchildren.
Nearly five hundred comments have been sent from people across the country to the Scholastic Facebook page at the news of Joy Watson's death. She will be sorely missed.