She is notable for her first novel Stand in the Rain (1966) and for her work with an orphanage in southern India, which is the subject of the documentary Aunty and the Star People.
[5][6][7] In the 1980s[a] Watson took a trip to India, where she met a man named Subbiah who was trying to collect funds to open an orphanage.
Watson returned home, sold her house, then used most of the funds to support the creation of an orphanage in Nilakottai, Tamil Nadu.
[13] However, her other novels The Balloon Watchers (1975), The World is an Orange and the Sun (1978), Flowers for Happyever: A Prose Lyric (1980) and Address to a King (1986) were paid little attention.
In the 2002 New Year Honours, Watson was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature and welfare work.