Born in Belfast, as a teenager Walker performed in the Francis Longford Choir, then worked as a riveter in the Harland and Wolff shipyard.

[1] He spent a short time as a comedy partner of James Young[citation needed] before serving seven years in the British Army.

By the end of the 1960s, he was running a pawn shop whilst working in the evenings as the compère at the Talk of the Town club in Belfast.

[6] A well-dressed gent with thick greying hair and a polite air, Walker's soft Irish voice, his lack of aggression, the composed expression hiding a gentle smile, his amazing pauses which defied interruption, somehow overawing and silencing hecklers…Walker hosted the game show Catchphrase from 1986 to 1999.

[7] Other television appearances in the 1990s included You Bet!, Gagtag, Light Lunch, Wipeout (celebrity special) and TV Nightmares.

On 4 March 2006, he was the Northern Ireland Regional Presenter in the UK's Eurovision Song Contest selection show Making Your Mind Up.

Walker is an after-dinner speaker and in June 2008 spoke and presented awards at the Association of Interior Specialists (AIS) President's Lunch at the Dorchester hotel in London.

In 2008, he performed at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival in his own one-hour show entitled Goodbye Mr Chips debuting on 31 July, his 68th birthday.

The other contestants were Most Haunted presenter Yvette Fielding, Natasha Hamilton of pop group Atomic Kitten and actor Bruce Jones who played Les Battersby on Coronation Street.

On 27 May 2013, Walker appeared on the BBC Radio 4 panel show Just a Minute, and on 6 January 2015 he was Marcus Brigstocke's guest on the same station's I've Never Seen Star Wars.

[citation needed] In January and February 2016, Walker appeared in the three-part BBC series The Real Marigold Hotel, which followed a group of celebrity senior citizens including Miriam Margolyes and Wayne Sleep on a journey to India.