There are 6,116 villages in the UK, all of whom contributed men to the WWI war effort. In only 56 villages did they all return at the end of the war. They’re called ‘Thankful Villages’, and I stumbled upon one called Toft in Cambridgeshire, apparently the only thankful village in the county.
2023-12-10
Thought it might pique some interests. Do you live in or near a thankful village?
I have a couple of doubly thankful villages near me
Interesting how so many of the Thankful Villages are in Somerset. Does scrumpy consumption give some sort of bullet-proofing?
This made me look up if there were many in France. Mine lost most of its young men in WW1.
12 out of 36,000 communes ( this includes cities to tiny villages) , including a couple of Doubly Thankful ones.
And Thierville, which lost no soldiers between the Franco Prussian War and the Algerian War of Independence including both World wars. Tis a small place, but still.
Here in Corby, we have the small village of East Carlton. It’s a five minute drive from where I live, and the the only other Thankful village in Northamptonshire is called Woodend, around 25 mins from me.
Living here in the North of Northamptonshire. I am surrounded by so much history and even better is the sheer number of village pubs serving local in season foods and the ever growing number of farm shops that sell what we now call premium foods, but foods that our Grand parents would have seen in the local shops as normal everyday foods, instead of the over processed stuff that everyday shoppers buy.
I often notice on war memorials how much bigger the WW1 section tends to be than the WW2. Because it’s more recent I feel a stronger general awareness of the losses in WW2, but the WW1 numbers we lost were horrific.
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List of Thankful Villages https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thankful_Villages
I’ll see your thankful village and raise you ‘doubly thankful villages’ (both wars).
https://www.history.co.uk/articles/what-are-doubly-thankful-villages
I have a couple of doubly thankful villages near me
Interesting how so many of the Thankful Villages are in Somerset. Does scrumpy consumption give some sort of bullet-proofing?
This made me look up if there were many in France. Mine lost most of its young men in WW1.
12 out of 36,000 communes ( this includes cities to tiny villages) , including a couple of Doubly Thankful ones.
And Thierville, which lost no soldiers between the Franco Prussian War and the Algerian War of Independence including both World wars. Tis a small place, but still.
Here in Corby, we have the small village of East Carlton. It’s a five minute drive from where I live, and the the only other Thankful village in Northamptonshire is called Woodend, around 25 mins from me.
Living here in the North of Northamptonshire. I am surrounded by so much history and even better is the sheer number of village pubs serving local in season foods and the ever growing number of farm shops that sell what we now call premium foods, but foods that our Grand parents would have seen in the local shops as normal everyday foods, instead of the over processed stuff that everyday shoppers buy.
I often notice on war memorials how much bigger the WW1 section tends to be than the WW2. Because it’s more recent I feel a stronger general awareness of the losses in WW2, but the WW1 numbers we lost were horrific.