Pottawattamie shocker

Honestly, I had no idea there was a massacre there. Or who John Brown was, and why his truth should be marchin' on. We did not learn US history at school. We knew the song about John Brown, but there were plenty of songs in the 1960s that I just took for granted.

At boarding school, in the convent in Scotland, I slept in a dormitory that had been the chapel, in my aunt's day. the step up to the altar remained, as did the space that had been the sacristy. My sister TMLHerandThere slept there at one time with her mates. Poor them, being attached to the junior dorm!

At the side of the former chapel, there was a long, dark corridor that was called Pottawattamie. In the year of 1975-6, I slept in the former priest's dressing room, with my other sister, K. and HB, a former blipper (not her blip name). A duo of Italian sisters slept in the dark room next door. In the antiquated novel Murder in a Nunnery, by Eric Shepherd, there is also a corridor called Pottawattamie. Why?

I sent this photo to my sister Tanya/TML, after I'd snapped it at Hollywood Bowl, where I'd been bowling with the young adults club. She responded by telling me about the massacre. Some abolitionists, including John Brown, massacred five anti-abolitionists, at Pottawattamie.

Why did we we have a corridor in Perthshire named after it? Answers welcome. Are there places in, say, Australia, named after the Glencoe massacre? I do not doubt it.

Apart from the shock of finding out about this sign, and finally booking a holiday (see Sunday''s blip, I'm all over the place) it was a cold, shivery day. The youth club session went well, which is always A Good Thing.