www.ns.legion.ca 153 Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion Tony’s Story My name is Tony Lipton. I was born on 24 August 1916 in Glace Bay and I am the oldest of 14 children, seven boys and seven girls. Two of my brothers are deceased now. If all my siblings had lived there would have been 21 of us. My mother just had her 105th birthday and she resides at The MIRA Nursing Home. When I was around two years, old my family moved to Stellarton. I went to school completing grade seven and I liked my seventh grade teacher so much I stayed there for two years. Sisters of Charity taught me. Anyway, after grade seven I just quit. I went to work because as the oldest I had to help my parents. My Dad worked in the mines, so I went to work in the mines too plus I did any odd jobs that I could find. When I would get my pay from the mines I would go home and give it to my Mother and she in turn would give me $2.00 back. In 1939, I went to work in a box factory at Grand Lake around Enfield area. I stayed there for eight to 10 months. In June 1940, my friend Joe Wilsack convinced me to go to New Glasgow to join the Army. There was a long line waiting to get into the Pictou Highlanders; another long line to get into the North Nova Scotia Regiment; and another outfit with a long line of guys waiting. Joe said he had a friend JimWhite who was a dragger man at the mines. So we went to see him and told him we had our First Aid Certificates and it just happened that was exactly what 22nd Field Ambulance was looking for. He gave them our names and that’s how we got in. I got in with a bad knee but Joe didn’t get in because they couldn’t see his chest in an x-ray. He did get in later though. You see we had to have drag to get into the Army! I met a young woman in 1936 and by now we had been together four years but we had no money to get married. The Army informed us that we would be sent overseas in six weeks. My girlfriend worked as a head pastry girl at the Green Lantern Restaurant in Halifax so I called her and asked her to marry me. She wanted me to give her two months but I told her I was leaving in six weeks. She said, “What about my Mom and Dad?” to which I responded, “I’m not interested in your Mom and Dad, I’m interested in you.” I told her I’d call her the next night at 6:00 p.m. The next night I called her, there were one or two rings. I asked her again and she responded, “well yes”. I told her that was good because I had all the arrangements made. You see I didn’t want to go overseas without marrying her. I thought if I didn’t come back, she’d at least have a little money coming to her. We married on 3 August 1940 at Saint Mary’s Basilica in Halifax. Her name was Catherine Henman. Those six weeks turned out to be 12 months later because I didn’t go overseas until July 21, 1941. In the meantime, Catherine became pregnant. We rented an upstairs house on Tony Lipton, in uniform 1940s continued ... Tony Lipton Service No. F67742, 22nd Field Ambulance
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM0NTk1OA==