The son of  Sydney stock and shares broker Egmont Palmer Walker, James 'Jimmy' Walker was conscripted at the end of World War II and was sent to help with the clean-up of Hiroshima. After the war, Walker and his team mates were early pioneers of the Thredbo Ski Resort, building one of the first chalets there. Despite the lack of ski-lifts and having to walk up the slopes to train, Walker managed to achieve Olympic selection for the 1956 Olympic Winter Games.

Australia sent 10 athletes to the 1956 Winter Olympics. Five of them were alpine skiers - this was the second time Australia was represented in the sport at the Winter Games. James Walker joined Bill Day, Tony Aslangul, Frank Prihoda and Christine Davy on the slopes of Tofana Ski Resort and Mount Faloria. Expectations were high as Walker had won all three Australian Skiing championships the year before, in Downhill, Slalom and Combined Alpine.

Unfortunately, while training in Austria prior to the Games, Walker suffered a ‘green-stick’ break to a bone in his ankle. He spent five weeks in plaster, but even after massage and exercise, the ankle was still very stiff. At the Games he competed in his first event, the Giant Slalom, finishing 84th in a race which is remembered for Austrian champion Toni Sailer's dominant victory (the Silver Medal was more than six seconds behind the winner) and the Austrian skiers' medal sweep, the first in Alpine skiing at the Olympics. Walker's injury meant that he had to withdraw from the Slalom and the Downhill events.

After the Games Walker first moved to central Queensland, working as a grazier near the town of Springsure, then in the '70s he established Jake Piggeries in Springdale, near Temora, NSW. A keen traveller, Walker took his family around the world living on a ship around the canals of Europe, first in England's waterways, then to France. He then crossed the Atlantic and travelled extensively to Cayman Island, USA and Trinidad and Tobago. While in Fort Lauderdale, FL he discovered that ships disposed of white goods and furniture on the dock. He started collecting them and transported them to Haiti, selling some, but largely giving them away in a philanthropic exercise. It was during one of his trips in Central and South America that Walker tragically passed away in 1996, after a ship robbery gone wrong. 

With assistance from the AOC