Intensive research has revealed that Bradbourne, Derbyshire’s only ‘Thankful Village’ – where all its World War One soldiers returned home safely – should now become one of only 15 ‘Doubly Thankful’ settlements where all World War Two servicemen also survived. Here is Barry M Marsden’s exclusive report of the findings.
IT WAS IN JANUARY LAST YEAR that Reflections published my article on Derbyshire’s only ‘Thankful Village’, the settlement of Bradbourne, where all eighteen serving soldiers in World War One returned safely home. Only English and Welsh villages qualifed for this distinction, as all Scottish and Irish ones suffered casualties in the Great War. The villages were identified by writer Arthur Mee in 1936, but whereas he only counted 32 civil parishes in his book Enchanted Land, further research has since enlarged his list to 53…