After
World War II, Henderson began working for the
Peter Maurice publishing company. It was there that he met the singer
Petula Clark in 1947. She suggested that Henderson be allowed to record his own music, and in 1955, he enjoyed two top twenty
UK singles chart hits on Polygon, "Sing It With Joe" and "Sing It Again With Joe", both medleys of vintage popular songs. Henderson wrote the incidental music and several songs for three British films that featured Clark:
Made In Heaven (1952),
The Gay Dog (1954) and
The Happiness of Three Women (1954). In 1957,
George Hamilton IV scored a hit with Henderson and Jack Fishman's composition "
Why Don't They Understand", a song they wrote about Henderson's relationship with Clark. She later went on to record the song, with it being released in 1965. Other artists who have recorded it include
Cliff Richard (1965),
Patty Duke (1966),
Frankie Avalon (1969),
Bobby Vinton (1970) and
The Williams Brothers (2002). Henderson later penned "There's Nothing More To Say" about the split with Clark, which she subsequently recorded as an album track. In 1994, a previously unreleased 14-minute medley of Clark singing while accompanied by Henderson, recorded circa 1958, was found in the
Pye Records vaults and released on a CD compilation of her recordings,
The Nixa Years: Volume 2. Henderson's biggest hit was "Trudie", which made number 14 in the
UK Singles Chart, Henderson was interviewed by
Roy Plomley for
BBC Radio 4's
Desert Island Discs, broadcast on 15 July 1972, in which he talked about how he got into music, and the composing process. ==Personal life and death==