The Postcard
A postcard that was published by Edgar Schmidt of Dresden. The card was posted in Huntingdon using a ½d. stamp on Monday the 30th. April 1906.
It was sent to:
Mrs. E. Tompkins,
West Yatton Farm,
Yatton Keynell,
Chippenham,
Wilts.
The brief message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"Do you get time
for this?
I don't."
The Foundering of a British Submarine
So what else happened on the day that the card was posted?
Well, on the 30th. April 1906, HMS A10 collided with the battleship HMS Empress of India in Plymouth Sound.
She was an A-class submarine built for the Royal Navy by Vickers in Barrow-in-Furness in 1905. After being raised and subsequently surviving the Great War, she was sold for scrap in 1919.
HMS A10 had a length of 105 feet 1 inch (32.0 m) overall, a beam of 12 feet 9 inches (3.9 m) and a mean draft of 10 feet 8 inches (3.3 m). She had a crew of 2 officers and 9 ratings.
For surface running, she was powered by a single 16-cylinder 600-brake-horsepower (447 kW) Wolseley petrol engine that drove one propeller shaft.
When submerged the propeller was driven by a 150-horsepower (112 kW) electric motor.
HMS A10 could reach 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph) on the surface, and 6 knots (11 km/h; 6.9 mph) underwater.
Her range on the surface was 500 nautical miles (930 km; 580 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). Submerged the boat had a range of 30 nautical miles (56 km; 35 mi) at 5 knots (9.3 km/h; 5.8 mph).
HMS A10 was sold for scrap to the Ardrossan Drydock Company of Ardrossan, Scotland, on the 1st. April 1919 .
Arnold Rikli
The 30th. April 1906 was definitely not a good day for Arnold Rikli, because he died at the age of 83 on that day in Sankt Thomas, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (now Austria).
Arnold, who was born in Wangen an der Aare, Switzerland, was a Swiss physician known for promoting naturopathy and naturism.
Rikli was notable for his natural healing regimens, and for his role in making the town of Bled, Slovenia into a health tourism destination in the latter part of the 19th. century.
Rikli was also a supporter of the so-called Lebensreform (Life Reform) social movement.
Arnold Rikli - The Early Years
Rikli was born on the 13th. February 1923 into a wealthy Swiss family as one of three sons. His father was involved with politics, and had his own factory.
His father's wish was that his sons would inherit his knowledge and ambitions; therefore, he sent Rikli and his brother Karl to the village of Seebach near Spittal, Austria.
There they built a new factory for leather dyeing. However Rikli became very unwell with diarrhoea, and he blamed his illness on exposure to chemicals.
Arnold Rikli in Bled
In order to rest and recuperate, Arnold went to Bled in Slovenia in 1852 for the first time. He thrived there, and after two years he had developed centres for helio-hydroscopic treatment.
He abandoned the family business and started his own healing method in Bled. Rikli proposed various therapies, most of which were based on exposing the body to water, air, and sun. Arnold claimed that it was preferable for these therapies to be done while naked.
His healing was founded on swimming in cold water, sun tanning, and walking. His famous quote was:
"Water is good, air is better,
and most of all the sunlight".
Guests resided in special houses, washed in tubs, and walked naked in the surrounding area (especially on the neighbouring hill called Straža, which later featured ski, walking, trim, and skeleton areas).
Rikli was not popular among the people in his local area; this may have followed from public nakedness in his park, the fact that he never learned the Slovenian language (despite living there for 52 years), and that he never accepted local customs.
Signs and guides in his park were written in German. Locals nicknamed Rikli as "Švajcar" (Swiss Guy) because of his nationality and "Sun Doctor" because he promoted sun tanning.
Rikli created baths, walking paths, hiking paths and housing in Bled. In the year 1895, he built a wooden house and baths in Swiss style and a hospital with his own examination office.
Because the word spread across Europe about Rikli's activities, a larger swimming area was constructed in 1899. Besides the people who were looking for healing, Bled started to attract people who wanted to spend their holidays in a healthy and clean environment. The number of visitors started to rise in 1870, after a railway station was built in Lesce.
In 1903, Bled was awarded with a gold medal at an international fair of healing places in Vienna. In 1906, Bled was classified among the best tourist destinations in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Rikli's healing facility was operated until the Great War, but was later abandoned. Rikli received a statue at his 50th healing anniversary.
The Arnold Rikli Award
Since 2016, the Jörg Wolff Foundation in Germany has awarded annually the Arnold Rikli Prize, endowed with 10,000 euros, for photobiological research in relation to the human organism. The award is under the patronage of the European Society for Photobiology.
