Mini bobsleigh tale that broke the ice with the Queen
THE Queen was most amused after the pilot of the Jamaican bobsleigh team told her about his unusual lockdown training.
Lance Corporal Shanwayne Stephens, of the RAF Regiment, said he had been pushing a Mini Cooper in Peterborough.
Shanwayne, 29, who lives in Lincoln, was among military personnel who spoke to the 94-year-old monarch in a video call about the Armed Forces’ work during the pandemic.
Her Majesty was intrigued by the sniper’s other career in bobsleigh for Jamaica, whose 1988 Winter Olympics team were immortalised in the 1993 comedy film Cool Runnings.
“Gosh!” she said, laughing. “Sounds a very dangerous job. So how do you train?”
Shanwayne, a member of the Queen’s Colour Squadron, the RAF’s ceremonial unit, said that with gyms shut he and fellow bobsleigher Nimroy Turgott “had to resort to unorthodox sort of training methods. So I have been pushing a car up and down the street.”
The Queen replied: “Well I suppose that’s one way to train,” before talking to him about training camps back in Jamaica. He hopes to compete in the Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022.
She also met Lieutenant Colonel Barrie Terry, 47, of the Yorkshire Regiment, who has been on a UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, west Africa, since November.
Due to the epidemic he has been unable to return to his wife Anya who looks after their two children in Gloucester and retrains nurses. He told the Queen: “So I’m afraid my wife has been slightly abandoned with our two young children.”
The monarch also spoke to a Royal Navy aircraft handler, Able Rate Sophie Levy, 22, who is currently serving in the Caribbean on the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Argus.
Sophie, from Windsor, spoke of ensuring the safety of aircraft and crew on the flight deck, preparing helicopters, and working as a firefighter in an emergency.
The Queen, who has remained at Windsor since March 19, said: “Sounds as though you are rather busy.”