If you met her, you have until 31 October to say so
What happened
The Cabinet Office has issued a final call for members of the public to submit their memories of Queen Elizabeth II for a digital memorial. The announcement was published on 23 October 2026. Submissions close on 31 October 2026. The Queen Elizabeth Digital Memorial is being built from contributions from the public. The ask is specific: personal memories of her. The examples given in the announcement are the sort of thing that happened to ordinary people rather than to officials — performing for her in a choir, meeting her on a walkabout, or celebrating a jubilee in your own street or town. Memories can be added at www.queenelizabeth.com. The Cabinet Office says hundreds of people have submitted memories so far, including some well-known names. Sir Richard Branson is one of those who has shared his. There is no exact total published, and the announcement does not include quotes from named officials. It is, in effect, a deadline notice. Queen Elizabeth II reigned for 70 years, from 1952 until her death in September 2022. Over seven decades she carried out thousands of public engagements across every part of the United Kingdom, which is why so many families have a story involving her, however brief. That is really the point of a memorial built this way. A statue records what a government decided to commemorate. A collection of memories records what actually happened to people — the school hall, the factory visit, the jubilee street party, the five seconds of a walkabout.
Why this matters
There is a straightforward reason to pay attention to this: the date. 31 October 2026 is a hard deadline for public submissions, and once it passes, the memories that did not get written down are not in the record. That is not a sales tactic. It is just how collection projects work. Someone has to close the window in order to build the thing. The people most likely to miss it are the ones whose memories are most worth having. If you were a child at a royal visit in the 1960s or 1970s, you are now in your sixties or seventies. If you remember the Silver Jubilee street party in 1977, you may be the only person in your family who does. If a grandparent met her and told you about it, that story exists in your head and nowhere else. Those are the gaps a public archive is for. Official records already cover where the Queen went and when. What they do not cover is what it was like to be the twelve-year-old holding a flag. Hundreds of people have already contributed, which tells you the project is real and being used. It also tells you there is room for a great many more. Seventy years of engagements across four nations is a lot of memories, and hundreds is a small fraction of them. There is also a quietly practical use. Local history groups, schools and parish archives often struggle to collect this kind of material. A national project with a deadline is a prompt to ask older relatives and neighbours now, while they can tell you themselves.
What the evidence actually says
This is a short government announcement and it is worth noting the limits of what it tells us. The deadline and the website are stated clearly: submissions close on 31 October 2026, at www.queenelizabeth.com. The participation figure is vague. The Cabinet Office says "hundreds of people, including famous faces" have submitted. No exact number is published, so it is not possible to say whether that means several hundred or many thousands. We have reported it as it was given. The announcement does not include direct quotes from named individuals. It notes that Sir Richard Branson has shared his memories, but does not quote them. It also does not say what happens after 31 October — when the memorial will be published, what form it will take, how submissions will be selected or edited, or whether everything submitted will appear. If you are deciding whether to contribute, that is a genuine unknown, and it is reasonable to assume anything you submit may become public. What is not in doubt is that this is an official Cabinet Office project with a published closing date. If you want to be in it, the action is simple and the window is short. One sensible precaution: a public memorial is a public document. Share the memory, not your address, phone number or anything else you would not want online.
Practical advice
If you have a memory to add, here is how to make it count. Go to www.queenelizabeth.com before 31 October 2026. That is the only deadline that matters here. Be specific rather than grand. A date, a place, what you were wearing, what she said, what the weather was doing. Specific detail is what makes an archive useful decades later. General admiration is not. Say when and where. If you can give a year and a town, your memory becomes findable and connectable to other people's. "Sometime in the seventies, somewhere up north" is much harder to place. Ask the older people in your life today. This is the highest-value thing you can do with the next week. Parents, grandparents, neighbours, people at your church or club. Many will have a story and will not think it is worth submitting. It is. Help someone who is not online. A fair number of people with the best memories do not use the internet confidently. Sitting with them for twenty minutes and typing while they talk is a small kindness with a long shelf life. Leave out anything private. Names of other living people, addresses, health details. Assume it will be read by strangers. And if you miss the date, the memory is still worth writing down somewhere — a family document, a local history society, a parish archive. The national window closes on 31 October. Your own does not.
What to know
The Cabinet Office published a final call on 23 October 2026 for the public to submit memories of Queen Elizabeth II for the Queen Elizabeth Digital Memorial. Submissions close on 31 October 2026 and can be added at www.queenelizabeth.com. The ask is for personal memories — performing for her in a choir, meeting her on a walkabout, celebrating a jubilee locally. The Cabinet Office says hundreds of people have contributed so far, including Sir Richard Branson. No exact total is published and the announcement contains no named quotes. The announcement does not say when the memorial will be published or how submissions will be used, so treat anything you submit as potentially public. If you have older relatives or neighbours with a memory, the useful thing to do this week is ask them, and help them submit it if they are not online. Sources: Cabinet Office, "Final call for public to submit their memories for Queen Elizabeth Digital Memorial", 23 October 2026, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/final-call-for-public-to-submit-their-memories-for-queen-elizabeth-digital-memorial; Queen Elizabeth Digital Memorial, https://www.queenelizabeth.com; The Royal Family, "Queen Elizabeth II", https://www.royal.uk/her-majesty-queen-elizabeth-ii. This article is for general information. It contains no health advice; for any health question, speak to a doctor, pharmacist or other qualified healthcare professional.
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