[3] Connor then worked for two years as a steward aboard the RMS Empress of France, before returning to England with the intention of earning his living as a songwriter.

By 1935, he started working with composer Edward Lisbona of Ambrose's orchestra, and they wrote "It's My Mother's Birthday Today", which was a hit for Arthur Tracy, who was known as "The Street Singer".

[3] Connor continued to write successfully over the next twenty years, mostly in Britain but occasionally spending time in the United States, mainly Los Angeles and New York.

(1940), "Be Like the Kettle and Sing" (1943), "Lili Marlene" (for which he wrote the English words, 1944), "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" (1952), and "Never Do a Tango with an Eskimo" (1956).

[2] As well as Lisbona and Williams, his co-writers included Horatio Nicholls, Jimmy Kennedy, Robert Stoltz, and Michael Carr.