Hurtling down an icy track in a bobsleigh, fighting ship fires and taking part in anti-narcotics operations is all in a day’s work for Fiona Haynes. But her job is anything but the 9 to 5 as ROBERT FISK finds out.

PIZZA and kebab leaflets drop through people’s letterboxes every week.

But it was a leaflet of a different kind which intrigued Fiona Haynes as she read it at her home in Beckenham back in 1999.

It was for the Royal Navy and told her she could join up and become an engineer while having adventures around the world.

Ten-and-a-half years after signing up she works as a marine engineer officer and is responsible for making sure ships are working properly.

News Shopper: Lieutenant Fiona Haynes at work on a ship

Lieutenant Haynes said: “Every day is completely different.

“One day I could be writing up a report then we could be doing a fire exercise or something might break on a ship.

“It is never mundane.”

The 28-year-old added: “We had a fire in my ship and I had to go and make it safe.

“It happened in the middle of the night and I jumped out of bed, put my overalls on and fell into routine.

“It was only afterwards when you think ‘Oh that could’ve been quite dangerous.’”

Seeing a leaflet got her into the navy and it was a poster which saw her joining the Royal Navy women’s bobsleigh team.

News Shopper: Lt Haynes (back) is in the Royal Navy bobsleigh team

After training in Calgary, Canada, she now races against teams from the other armed forces.

These teams include some of the women who competed for Great Britain in this year’s winter Olympics so she does not expect to get first place.

But the self-confessed adrenaline junkie said: “It is an adrenaline rush getting to the bottom each time and thinking ‘Wow, we survived’.

“You have a bond with your teammates and there is a closeness between us and we are all of the same mind.”

“I will try anything; the only thing I did not like is diving because I do not like not being able to breathe underwater.”

The former Newstead Wood School pupil’s job currently involves going into schools and telling them about jobs in the Royal Navy.

But she has been on assignments on HMS Ocean to Sierra Leone where Royal Marine troops were deployed.

On the same ship she went to the Caribbean on an anti-narcotics operation.

Lt Haynes is due to go back to sea this year and there is a possibility she will be sent to Afghanistan.

This is a prospect she is quite nervous about.

She said: “I think it would be unnatural to want to go out there and fight but speaking to people who have come back they have got a lot out of it.

“When you are out there, you just get out there and do your job.

“But I would miss my family obviously.”