James Walker is a retired engineer who spent the early part of his career as a patternmaker, making models (patterns) in wood used to make castings of, amongst other things, propellers for the shipbuilding industry. He spent the latter part of his career supervising the building of aircraft undercarriages, most notably for the Hawk aircraft as flown by the Red Arrows.

He was brought up in the Scotland Road area of Liverpool and spent part of his early childhood chopping wood from houses bombed during the Second World War to sell as firewood, the money being used to buy comics which he loved reading. 

In his teens, The Beatles put Liverpool on the map with their music. A near neighbour, (and second cousin), was becoming a famous pop star, too, who would go on to grace British television screens for decades. He did attempt to follow in her footsteps but, by the time he did, it wasn't enough to simply come from Liverpool to be noticed, and he was told by the London record producer listening to his demo tape to go home, write some original material, and come back and see him.