Gerald Harvey Thompson
OBE. MA. MSc. (Oxon). Hon. FRPS. (1917-2002)
Life in the Colonial Services
The hot and humid environment is one of the worst climates in the world
Gerald Harvey Thompson
OBE. MA. MSc. (Oxon). Hon. FRPS. (1917-2002)
Life in the Colonial Services
The hot and humid environment is one of the worst climates in the world and in those days the incidence of malaria and other diseases was high. He was scarcely comforted by the couplet:
‘Beware, take care of the bight of Benin; one comes out, though forty go in.’
The French did not invade and after doing an assortment of tasks to help the war effort (one of Gerald’s first duties on arrival in Ghana was to organise the collection of wild rubber to be sent to England for the manufacture of tyres. Other sources of rubber from, e.g. Malaysia, had been cut off due to flighting all over Burma
He settled down for the next eight years to life as a District Forest Officer. During the early years he spent three weeks in every month camping in the jungle, returning to base to write monthly reports and to arrange the payment of staff. (He estimates he spent a total of three years camping alone in the jungle). His work included surveying a new forest reserve by chain and compass (excluding any village where possible) in order to protect timber supplies and water catchment areas, and drawing up working plans for their management. He had the help of twelve labourers who cut the boundary lines. Working from 7am to 3pm each day leisure time was spent collecting beetles associated with dead and dying trees; this was his hobby, and at night after a bath by the light of a tilley oil lamp he would mount his day’s collection of beetles and write up notes. Eventually he brought home to England 3000 mounted specimens with notes, two hundred and fifty tubes of spirit specimens (larvae and pupae) and various wood specimens showing damage. The adult specimens were all left at the South Kensington Natural History Museum, Department of Entomology where the staff were most helpful in providing identification.
Many specimens were new to science, and some were named after Gerald e.g. Cerambycidae. Leptostylus thompsoni sp.n Elaphidion thompsoni sp.n Colydiidae. Sosylus thompsoni sp.n Scolytidae. Rhopalopselion thompsoni sp. n. Tiarophorus intermedius sp.n Carabidae. Hyperecterus minor Britton sp.n (sp.n = new species). Types and paratypes are now in the new Darwin Centre.
In addition to running a forest district he was given two special jobs contributing to the war effort; the collection of wild rubber – Ficus sp. – by farmers – since the war extended to the plantations of Hevea sp. in the Far East. Payment was made in gunpowder for which the farmers were desperate in order to shoot ‘bush’ meat (antelopes). The solid wood boxes that the gunpowder came in were perfect for logs and therefore made excellent breeding cages for Gerald’s beetles.
The second war effort contribution concerned the construction of furniture for the West African Army. This project was based on Koforidua in the Eastern Province. Gerald recruited three hundred carpenters working in about 40 workshops scattered throughout the town. A Togoland overseer assisted him and every day Gerald visited each workshop on foot to keep an eye on quality control. The main products were uniform cases made from mahogany (Khaya sp.) or cedar (Entandrophragma sp.) of which hundreds were made. He had to give his talks through an interpreter who spoke Twi, the language of the Ashanti people. One problem was that he could not check what his interpreter was saying so Gerald learnt Twi – a difficult tonal language in which one word can have several meanings. After three years he became fairly proficient and could converse with the locals.
On admission to Hospital in Oxfordshire in his eighties he astounded the doctor who was treating him by talking to him in Twi – the doctors native language.
He learnt many stories about Anancy (the spider) to amuse the children, and life in the ‘bush’ became much more interesting. One day he walked into a village to give a forestry talk and was somewhat shocked when all the children ran away screaming into the forest! On asking an elder of the tribe what was wrong he was informed that no white man had visited the village for fifteen years so none of the children had seen a white man and they thought he was an alien. The fact that Gerald was exceptionally tall at 6ft 5 ins was another factor! Everywhere he went he collected wood boring-beetles which were studied in his spare time until eventually he was able to submit a thesis for a research degree. This hobby, and his collection of classical records, helped to dispel the loneliness.
Apart from a near escape from being bitten by a gaboon viper (10 mins to death) when he sat near it in the jungle one day, Gerald had only one serious during his years in the West African jungle. This occurred when he pitched his tent in a forest of high trees which, unknown to him, were growing in shallow soil There was no village nearby so the labourers made a shelter for themselves to sleep in that night. Well after dark a violent storm arose, with lashing rain and violent high winds, and soon – after much creaking – a large tree smashed to the ground whereupon he called everyone to his tent. Luckily the fly