Becoming a Royal Marines Commando was an unlikely ambition for a Catholic boy growing up in Belfast at the start of the Troubles. For Tip Cullen (born Thomas Patrick Roberts), however, it was a dream he held onto throughout his childhood.
“Everything was an adventure”
Tip grew up amid everyday violence. An early memory is playing while his father worked on the car, and masked men approached and held a gun to his father’s head, warning the family to move away. Looking back, Tip recognises the horror of the moment, but as a child it felt like part of an adventurous world rather than a dangerous one.
“There’d be snipers on top of our school… soldiers patrolling behind the walls of Crumlin Road Gaol… prisoners trying to escape into our school, and on the other side Girdwood Park Barracks… where you could hear soldiers zeroing their weapons.”
Tip gravitated toward physical activity, friendship and challenge. He climbed mountains, played Gaelic football and hurling, and thrived on risk and camaraderie. He saw an advert for the Royal Marines Commandos. Their toughness and sense of purpose instantly appealed. “I wanted to be one of them… In hindsight it was a form of escapism.”
He wrote away for information, studied their history, and quietly committed to joining. “I even told my parents when I was very young… my father said, ‘Don't worry about it, Thomas, you'll grow out of that'. And I didn’t.”
Joining the Marines
At age 16, Tip collected his ‘O’ Level results and went straight to the careers office. He passed the initial fitness tests, but as a minor he needed parental consent. His father initially refused, adamant that he would not sign for a son to join the Commandos. Tip’s mother persuaded him, but they still required a witness.
To keep his plans confidential, Tip travelled late at night to the police station in a nearby village. A duty sergeant agreed to sign after phoning Tip’s parents in the early hours to confirm consent. “I think my parents made a lot of difficult choices to allow me to move forward.”
Training was “…borderline torturous… you were physically and mentally challenged … but you thrive on it because you’ve got a community going through exactly the same thing.”
Tip turned 18 during training and achieved ‘Diamond’ status. Getting the green beret was a defining moment. “That’s it. I’ve done everything I wanted to do… Getting my green lid, that’s the rock star.”
But his ambition continued. He set his sights on becoming a Royal Marines Mountain Leader after promotion to Corporal. “If you can operate in a cold, ski-borne, mountainous environment, that says to me you are the ultimate warrior.”
Deployments and Iraq
Between 1998 and 2003, Tip deployed repeatedly to Northern Ireland, Kosovo and Afghanistan. By 2003 he was a Colour Sergeant with 3 Commando Brigade in Iraq, part of the Brigade Reconnaissance Force.
During night operation rehearsals, Marines were assigned to specific Sea Knight helicopters, their names annotated on ‘white cards’ (to record who was on each aircraft). On the night itself, Tip was unexpectedly redirected to a different helicopter.
He said goodbye to the Alpha Headquarters Team on his original helicopter. “This is it. See you on the ground after the first phase.” Tip was leading the Bravo Headquarters element, prepared to step up if required during the first phase of the mission.
“I’m not dead”
Flying ahead, Tip could see the Alpha Headquarters helicopter behind, illuminated by oil fires below. “That was the last thing I remember, until a while afterwards… things just went whack - blew up.”
Tip didn’t realise the exploding aircraft was the helicopter he had been meant to board. “I thought it was a helicopter… but I hadn’t thought it was our helicopter.”
Back at base the truth became clear. “I just watched them blow up, and five minutes before that I was hugging them.” Because no one knew he’d been reassigned, his return to headquarters stunned his commanding officer. “He had his radio and he’s just looking at me, staring at me. He said, ‘They’re all dead.’ I said, ‘There’s no way anyone could survive that.’ He goes, ‘But you’re dead.’ I go, ‘I’m not dead.’”
Tip became acting Sergeant Major/Troop Commander and continued operations. “It’s surreal… for days afterwards it was, ‘Did that really happen?’ You just carry on.”
On reflection he feels “completely blessed”. His survival brought a sense of responsibility to tell the story of his fallen comrades. Determined to honour them, when he left the service after 30 years and became a Reservist, he pursued acting, adopting the name Tip Cullen in honour of his great-grandfather, who died at the Battle of the Somme.
In 2018, he toured with the Royal British Legion’s Bravo 22 arts recovery programme. Film and theatre roles followed, and he found that drawing on memories of his fallen comrades became a form of Remembrance.
Alongside acting, Tip works as an assistant practitioner at Theatre Royal Plymouth and is developing a play to capture the “wonder” of his Bravo comrades. “I just want that to be remembered.”
Tip has seen how the arts can support veterans with trauma. He recalls one Bravo 22 programme participant whose family said, “You’ve brought him back. He’s come back from Afghanistan.”
For Tip Remembrance is “… a sacred thing. It’s the most important day of the year. It’s so important to remember people who are able to give up everything for something more than themselves.”
