A quarter of a million people, or 0.3% of the population of the UK that is alive today, or one in three hundred people in the UK have actually spoken to the Queen.

That figure assumes she spoke to on average 23 new people at each of the 21,000 engagements she attended during her 70 year reign, an average age of her interlocutor of 35, an average lifespan of interlocutor of 75 years (it is 81 in the UK in 2022) and the vast majority of her interlocutors being UK inhabitants.

If we include the 307,000 people she sent a 100th birthday telegram to and the 927,000 couples she sent a 60th anniversary message to that brings the figure up to 2.6 million people in total (alive or dead) she has directly communicated with, though this is an overestimate since there will be overlap between these these cohorts.

Since the written communications were over a period of 70 years, and assuming an average age of the recipient of the written communications of 80, 200,000 could be assumed to still be living, making for up to half a million people in the UK in total who are alive now (2022) having received direct communication from the Queen.

If you have any other thoughts or figures on these estimates please leave a comment below.

Of course, the Queen’s influence was felt by many more people, including myself. Her devotion to duty with good humour and intelligence is just one of the legacies she will leave us with.

May you ever rest in peace Ma’am.