She was born in an isolated Kimberley leprosarium and taken from her mother at just three days old, but Kathy Watson's childhood gave her the strength and passion for a lifetime of helping others.

Renowned for her warmth and friendly greetings to friends and strangers alike, Ms Watson's demeanour leaves people unprepared for the story of her childhood.

"My mother was a leper at the Derby leprosarium and she couldn't hold me," she said without a hint of self-pity.

"As soon as I was born, my mother had only eye contact, not body contact.

"I came in to Beagle Bay at three days old to a lady called May Howard, in a washing basket."

A different world

It was 1952, the year of the Helsinki Olympics and prime minister Robert Menzies overseeing the rise of suburbia for Australia's middle class families.

But life was different in the Kimberley, where many local people lived in poverty and leprosy was a serious health issue.

Now known as Hansen's disease, in 1952 the bacterial infection was still poorly understood and invoked biblical fears.

Introduced through European settlement, leprosy had spread rapidly among Aboriginal people in Australia's north.

Doctors raised the alarm about 147 new cases in the mid-1930s, and many of these were detained at the Kimberley's regional hospital in Derby.

Residents of Bungarun, or the Derby leprosarium, do their morning exercises in 1948. ( Supplied: State Library of WA )

With newspapers highlighting the threat to the white population of the Kimberley, a leprosarium called Bungarun, which forcefully detained Indigenous patients, was established by the West Australian government in 1936.

Ms Watson's parents were just two of about 1,200 inmates over 50 years of operation.

"They couldn't do much because they were rounded up by police and just brought to Bungarun and left there," Ms Watson said.

It was a confinement that often lasted decades, or an eternity for the 350 patients who died there and were buried in mostly unmarked graves.

Babies like Ms Watson were whisked away for fear of spreading the disease.

"I didn't see my mother until the age of 13 … that's when I met my real mother," she said.

Baby Kathy Watson held by Sister Josepha May, one of the Sisters of St John of God, who cared for her as a child. ( Supplied: Kathy Watson )

'We had nothing but we were happy'

In spite of the obvious hardship of her childhood, Ms Watson only has positive stories about her life growing up at the Beagle Bay mission.

"I can't complain about my childhood days at Beagle Bay. They were happy," she said.

"We used to have our own little outings, going out camping and fishing with the nuns every Sunday."

Ms Watson found a strong sense of family living in a girls' dorm with children who were part of the Stolen Generations, removed from their parents because of government assimilation policy.

As well as the Sisters of St John of God nuns — the same order who also cared for patients at the leprosarium — Ms Watson was adopted by an Aboriginal mother, Ms Howard.

"It didn't get to me that Mum wasn't there for me because I knew that May Howard was my mother-figure," Ms Watson said.

"We had nothing, but we were very happy, with the good Sisters of St John of God and the Pallottine priests."

Ms Watson's mother Emily was a patient at the Derby leprosarium for about 30 years. ( Supplied: Kathy Watson )

Making a difference

Perhaps the greatest testimony that Ms Watson's childhood was happy in spite of the obvious hardships has been the achievements of her adult life.

"My proudest achievement is doing things on my own … I was made to get up and do it, for instance, starting up the Aboriginal Medical Service in the Kimberley," she said.

Ms Watson was part of a group of people who created an Aboriginal-controlled health service in Broome in the 1970s, in response to problems they saw in regular hospitals.

"A lot of Aboriginal mothers and babies, or people used to go there — 'Oh, you come back and see the doctor the next day, at 10 o'clock'," Ms Watson said.

"In the meantime they might get very sick, or they might die or whatever."

The Broome Regional Aboriginal Medical Service helped train Indigenous health workers and overcome cultural barriers to better health.

One of the organisation's early achievements was to help with the closure of the leprosarium where Ms Watson was born, and where her parents were detained for about 30 years.

Modern treatments and attitudes to Hansen's disease had been slow to be adopted in the Kimberley, and it was 1986 before Bungarun was finally closed.

After 50 years of operation, it was a difficult process for Kimberley people who had spent so much of their lives in the institution.

"It's a medical problem that can be treated in a general hospital with isolated wards," Ms Watson said.

"And it took us a long time to tell the people that it's not separated like before."

Ms Watson keeps a washing basket around her house like the one she was put in as a baby, to remind her of the happiness she found despite having very little. ( ABC Kimberley: Ben Collins )

'I'm there for everyone'

Ms Watson also helped establish training for Aboriginal health workers, and has been on the boards of Aboriginal organisations focused on health, community development, and legal services.

"I'm there for everyone. I'm not going to separate nobody, because my parents were disadvantaged," she said.

"Still today some people come around and say, 'You got anything to eat?' And I say, 'Go in the kitchen, looking in the fridge or the cupboard, and help yourself'.

"It doesn't worry me, because I like helping and supporting people."

Disadvantage among Aboriginal people continues to be a big problem in the Kimberley, and is entangled with substance abuse, violence and crime.

Ms Watson regularly volunteers as a translator for the Aboriginal Legal Service, translating Indigenous languages and the foreign experience of the criminal justice system for many Aboriginal people.

But as well as helping and supporting people in need, she believes strongly in personal responsibility.

"It's up to the individual themself. If they want to go and do silly things like roam the streets, do crime, that's up to them," Ms Watson said.

"But be there and support them if they come and say, 'What can we do?'"

Rather than limiting Ms Watson's life, her childhood and the support she received gave her a drive to help others.

"I've got fond memories despite being born at the Derby leprosarium, and I achieved all the best I can," she said.