In 1942, Walker succeeded Granville as principal "heavy" baritone, playing the Sergeant of Police in "The Pirates of Penzance", Shadbolt, Don Alhambra, and Pooh-Bah. In succeeding years he added to these the Usher, Private Willis and Boatswain. He filled in for Fancourt from time to time as Mountararat, Colonel Calverley, and the Mikado, and he also occasionally played Grosvenor in "Patience". The Gilbert and Sullivan historian Colin Prestige wrote of him, "Richard Walker knew exactly the limit between comedy and buffoonery. ... His Wilfred Shadbolt was sardonic, his Don Alhambra del Bolero urbane, his Pooh-Bah sanctimonious." Walker married a fellow company member, Helen Roberts, on 31 July 1944. Earlier that month, the two found themselves very close to an exploding German rocket near Piccadilly Circus, as they approached a restaurant. They were not seriously hurt, but just before they went on stage that evening as Wilfred and Elsie in "The Yeomen of the Guard", Walker proposed marriage.