[1][2] He played organ in his local chapel as a child, and initially worked as a piano tuner in Manchester, before joining a travelling concert party as a pianist.
[4] As well as songs for revues, notably those produced by Lupino Lane, they wrote sketches for such stars as Fred Karno, Robb Wilton and Wee Georgie Wood.
In 1926, they started working with theatre producers Jack Waller and Joe Tunbridge, and wrote several musical comedies together, mostly featuring the comedian Bobby Howes.
They wrote the popular monologue "My Word, You Do Look Queer", first recorded by Ernest Hastings in 1922 and later popularised by Stanley Holloway.
Together with Weston's son Harris Weston (born Robert Edgar Harris, 1901–1978),[7] they wrote Holloway's 1934 monologue "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm", about the ghost of Anne Boleyn haunting the Tower of London, seeking revenge on Henry VIII for having her beheaded.
In 1938, Lee and Harris Weston co-wrote the hit stage revue These Foolish Things which starred The Crazy Gang and the Sherman Fisher Girls.
In 1939, Lee and his wife went on holiday to Llandudno in north Wales, and at the outbreak of the Second World War decided to settle in the town.