WHAT'S with these Singleton boys? The stuff they get up to would give any mother a heart attack.

One of them competes in the luge where you fly down an ice track at speeds in excess of 130 kph only inches off the ground.

Another one of them decides to "run with the bulls in Pamplona", to celebrate graduating from Oxford University.

And yet another one thinks it would be a good idea to trek across the Gobi Desert in Mongolia and return home with his clothes hanging off his underfed body.

But mother Sallie Singleton takes it all in her stride.

"These guys of mine are quite free spirits - other people might call them wild," said Mrs. Singleton while watching her son Patrick compete in the luge at the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City this week.

While Mrs. Singleton, who was a dancer with the Royal Ballet, said her three boys had a "sheltered childhood", she added: "My philosophy was to give them their roots and then give them their wings.

"But I do not know where (this wild, dangerous) streak comes from. I know my husband (Derek) is very competitive."

Derek Singleton, tennis pro at the Coral Beach Club, represented Bermuda at the Pan American Games in Winnipeg, Canada in 1967. "And he always wanted to race Formula One cars. That's what he wants to come back as - a Formula One driver," said Mrs. Singleton.

Although she admits to taking everything in stride, Mrs. Singleton did get a little worried about 25-year-old son Colm "running with the bulls".

She said: "He always was threatening to do it for years and I was always delighted when something else came up so he couldn't do it.

"But last summer when he graduated from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, he and ten other Rhodes Scholars jumped into a big van and drove to Pamplona, Spain, to run with the bulls.

"Unfortunately, he phoned me just before he was about to run! He said to me, `I'm here and I'm going to do it'. I suppose it was a rite of passage. He had a fantastic time but you can get gored doing that.

"He managed to get into the stadium safely but then a bull charged him and he had to jump over a wall to get to safety.

"As it was he landed on a concrete floor. I guess that was better than getting gored."

Last year youngest son John, who turned 22 this week and studies art design in Georgia, joined up with a programme called Raleigh International. Mrs. Singleton said: "It is something like the Outward Bound programme. Prince William did a Raleigh International programme in Chile last year."

There were three components to this programme for John. He had to take part in an environmental project which he did by tagging small animals for the Darwin Project in Mongolia. Then he had to build a health clinic for the UN in Mongolia.

"He loved that because they built it from scratch," his mother said.

Finally, he trekked with ten other students across the Gobi Desert for ten days.

Mrs. Singleton said: "They had to carry everything themselves and do their own navigation. I gather they trekked from waterhole to waterhole to wherever they had to go.

"When he came back he was extremely thin. In fact, he couldn't eat Western food for about a week because it would make him sick."

But the experience was good for him, she said. "I do not think people in Bermuda realise how much they have. The people in Mongolia have nothing but John said they were still very happy.

"I told him to bring some treasures back with him and when I asked to see what he had brought back he pulled out this small circle designed with horse hair. That's what they gave him because they really have nothing and it is his most prized possession."

Mrs. Singleton said she couldn't think of a better place than Bermuda for kids to grow up.

"Bermuda has been great for the Singleton boys," she said. "I do not go along with this thought that there is nothing to do in Bermuda. That is so far from the truth.

"Growing up all three played tennis, sailed and joined the Junior Golf Association and played soccer and cricket - everything. There is so much to do in Bermuda."

But perhaps their love of sport may come from their father Derek.

"He had them playing with a ball within a week of being born and coming home from the hospital. He was always doing hand-eye co-ordination exercises with them.

"But he never wanted to push them into tennis. He wanted for them to have a well-rounded sports life. Whatever they wanted to do."

Father Derek added: "The worst thing a parent can do is push their children into something just because that is what they do.

"Just because you are a tennis player or a dancer does not mean your children should have to do it.

"Let them find out what they like. Just give them the chance to try as many things as possible."

And was Mrs. Singleton surprised that son Patrick decided to take up luging?

"No not at all," she said. "It is typical of him."