Chuckles lift gloom for raining monarch

In just 17 days the Queen will declare the Games open during a spectacular ceremony at the Olympic Park in Stratford, east London.

In the castle’s quadrangle the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh watched as torchbearer Gina Macgregor, 74, ran into the open space after earlier receiving the flame from Renate Beynon, 66.

Its journey began in Oxford where athletics legend Sir Roger Bannister started the flame on its way at the site of his greatest sporting achievement, the Iffley Road track where he broke the four-minute mile barrier on May 6, 1954.

When the flame is exchanged between runners they touch their torches together, known as a “kiss moment”.

But in a bid to allow the royals to watch a handball demonstration from schoolchildren the symbol of the Games was put into a lantern.

Minutes before the flame arrived grey skies which had been threatening rain let go a torrential downpour which forced guests under the shelter of the castle’s Sovereign’s Entrance.

Mrs Macgregor, from Taplow near Slough, arrived soaking wet and met the Queen. Laughing, she told the royal couple “I looked fine this morning”, and they both began chuckling.