Outside Wilkinson's on Friday afternoon, I was amused to see long lines of coppers (of the coin kind!) lined up under the watchful eye of Malvern's Rotary Society. The aim is to gather one mile of coins in total for local charities.
But how much would that actually be? A mile is 1,609,344 millimetres in length (thank you Google!). So a two penny coin, at a diameter of 25.9 millimetres, would be 62,136 coins (£1242). A one pence coin (20.3 millimetre diameter) would be 79,278 (£792), whilst a new five pence coin (18mm diameter) would be 89,408 (£4704).
But surely Malvern Rotary should be advised to go for the most rewarding: a £2 coin is 28.4mm, and would require 56,667 coins to make the mile. And a rather big difference it would make to the money raised too!
(For the sake of completeness, a £1 coin at 22.5mm would be 71,526 coins).