Thankful villages

[Top-of-the-hill]

   This follows on from the thread asking for WW1 stories; I didn't want to hi-jack that, but Graham mentioned Thankful Villages.
  I grew up quite close to one of these - Knowlton in Kent. I had a feeling that there was some sort of newspaper involvement, and I found that there was a competition for "The Bravest Village", which is rather different. "The "Bravest Village" was defined as the one from which the largest proportion of its men volunteered to serve in the armed forces before 28 February 1915." Knowlton won this and has a large monument beside the Sandwich Road.
  However my grandfather, who did serve in WW1 and was left-leaning in politics, regarded it as a farce, because Knowlton is little more than the big house and the men "of the village" were mainly their employees "encouraged" to join by the boss. An article I have just read seems to support Grandad's view of things.