Original account by Vincent Whitehead on his life

Vincent Booth Whitehead, born 2 September 1921 at East London, father Claude Vincent, mother Eileen Lange Fair (nee Pascoe). Grew up in the Queenstown district on the farm Milton, 17 miles south of the town on the Katberg road. Was educated at Queen's College and matriculated in 1939. On 2 Sept 1940 joined the South African Artillery and was posted to the East London coastal battery, first to the 6 inch coastal guns and then to the Battery Observation Post as a range finder. In May the following year went north with the 2nd Anti-Aircraft regiment and landed at Berbera, British Somaliland to join the Abyssinia compaign. On completion of this the regiment moved to Eritrea where we embarked from Masawa to join the Allied forces and the Eighth army in the Western desert. In June 1942 Rommel=s forces pushed the Allies back to El Alamein leaving a large part of the South African forces stranded at Tobruk, including the 2nd Anti-Aircraft Regiment. Rommel's forces easily penetrated rather inadequate perimeter defences and I with 30, 000 other South Africans were captured and moved to Benghazi and then by ship to Naples and a camp at Bari in Italy. Here we worked on various wine farms and later on a landing strip at San Pancratsio, a small village within sight of Brindizi, on the heel of Italy. Again we were moved, north to Laterina near Florence and remained there until the Italian forces collapsed. German forces then took over and we were crammed into closed cattle trucks to the extent that not everyone could lie down at the same time. After three days, having passed through the Brenner Pass into Germany the trucks were opened. After several holding camps we were moved east into Upper Silesia to work with the Poles in the coal mines at Sosnowiec. Here we remained until the January of 1995 when the advancing forces of Russia forced the Germans to move us westwards, this time on foot until we reached the edge of the Black Forest at Landshut in Bavaria. We were release by the Americans under Paton in May. I arrived back in Cape Town in July 1945 by ship, having spent some time in Brussels and Brighton.

After demobilisation I was notified that I had been awarded the Military Medal for bravery in the field and was invited to the investiture at Pretoria. Back in Queenstown I farmed with my father and attended courses in Sheep and Wool at Grootfontein Agricultural College and in Dairying at Glen Agricultural College but in 1948 drought conditions dictated that I should attempt to increase my earning power by getting into some other field. My brother Graeme who had completed a B. Sc. and M. Sc.at Rhodes University suggested I do the same. I completed my B. Sc. in 1951 and was offerd employment as an Entomologist at the Western Province Fruit Research Station at Stellenbosch where I started in March1952. In the same year I married Shirley Inez Mallett, also of Queenstown.

My first few years at the W. P.F. R. S. was spent becoming fimilar with the pests of deciduous fruit and measures implemented for their control as well as testing new material against codling moth, fruitfly and mites. I then moved onto the pest control of subtropical fruits such as olives, guavas, citrus and grapes. At this stage I became interested in the bilogical control of mealybug, a major pest of grapes, and in 1957 used this research as partial fulfilment for a M. Sc. as an external student at Rhodes University. In 1960 I was granted a bursary to study for three years at the Berkely campus of the University of California, concentrating on the biological control of fruit pests. My Ph. D. thesis field was the taxonomy of ladybird beetles of the tribe Scymnini, which are the main predators of aphids, scale insects and mealy bugs .

On return to South Africa I continued with the biological control of mealybugs on grapes with my interest concentrated on table grapes in the Hex River valley. Here the major obstacle to control of mealybug by natural enemies was the paucity of coccinellids due to the heavy application of insecticides and fungicides. The reduction of sulphur dust applications (for diseaae control) to a minimum and the release of large numbers of a coccinellid predator, reduced heavy mealybug infestation to acceptable proportions.

The peach growing farmers of the Little Karoo have periodic invasions of fruit piercing moths and heavy losses occur, particularly to the Kakamas canning cultivars. A four year study of this problem showed that, although there are at least four species of night flying moths that are able to pierce the skin of most fruit, Serrodes partita was the moth that caused most damage. Larvae of this moth feed exclusively on the Wild Plum, Pappea capensis, but survival in large numbers is dependent on a good supply of young foliage in their first instar. These conditions, that is a good leaf flush, results only when effective rainfall occurs in November. Such conditions are cyclic and occur in that area on average every eight years. Control measures cannot be aimed at the immature stages and as only ripe fruit is attacked no insecticides can be used in the orchards. Fortunately adults are affected by light and are deterred by light barriers at the orchard edge.

I was made head of the entomology department at the Fruit Research Institute in 1972 but found that administrative work left little time for research which was not to my liking and moved to the South African Museum in 1974. I initially continued my studies in coccinellids but changed my field of study mainly because Dr Helmut Feurch of Germany was already an established authority in African ladybird beetles and Dr Jerry Rosen of the American Museum, who was on a field trip to this country, got me interested in the bee family Fideliidae. In the years 1976-1981 Geoff Mclachlan of our Herpatology department and I made annual field trips into Namaqualand and the then Northern Cape, Geoff to collect snakes and geckos and me to collect beetles and bees, particularly fideliids. On many of these trips we were accompanied by Dr Mary-Lou Penrith and Schalk Louw of the State Museum, Windhoek, especially when we went into the restricted diamond area of the southern Namib where special permission had to be obtained. As Mary-Lou and Schalk were predominantly Coleopterists most of my colletions also showed this bias.

In 1981 while trying to find how early the bee Parafidelia major emerged in the Clanwilliam area, I discovered a large black long legged bee visiting a twin spurred Diascia and established that it inserted the long front legs into the spurs to collect the oil secreted there. This lead to contact with Kim Steiner of the Botanical Research Institute at Kirstenbosch who was studying the taxonomy of Diascia and the behaviour of the bees that pollinated them. Diascia and several other genera in the Scrophulariaceae (Hemimeris, Alonsoa, Bowkeria and Anastrabe as well as several genera of the Orchidaceae produce oil which is collected by bees of the genus Rediviva. The study of these bees and their relationships with the oil producing plants has taken us up to the Orange River on the western part of the country, through the great and little Karoo, and the high-lying summer rainfall areas, including Lesotho and Swaziland, and the temperate coastal areas of the Eastern Cape and Kwazulu-Natal.

I retired in 1986 when Hamish Robertson took over the department but continued with my bee research and assocciation with Kim Steiner. To date this research has resulted in 18 scientific publications with two in press, the latest being a review of the Rediviva species of the winter rainfall region.