Steve Boyd - S-Bend’s still a winner

He was one of the Wakatipu’s top sportsmen in his day, roaming a totally forested Queenstown Hill as his playground growing up, and representing Central Otago and Otago Country in tennis and rugby.

Affectionately known locally as ‘S-Bend’ for his plumbing prowess, Steve Boyd, like his legendary local bagpiper dad Hec, churned out extremely long hours working pipes of a different kind.

His was a full life until a serious paragliding accident in 2004 left him in extreme pain after extensive reconstructive surgery. It was a huge transition.

Born in 1962, one of six kids, they worked hard to fund new bikes and motorbikes which they tore around the hills on behind their Hallenstein Street home.

Steve knew about maths – top in New Zealand, aged 13, and he was taught a good work ethic, so he worked hard to fund these teenage endeavours.

“I did a milk run before school starting at 4am, swinging on the back of the truck during those freezing mornings. It was brutal.” He then had a paper run after school.

“We had a free reign in the early days, as long as we were home for dinner and didn’t get into trouble.”

Local environmental watchdog and neighbour Margaret Templeton had Steve on watch too: “I’d put my hand in the bushes through the hole in the fence to pick her gooseberries and get a whack on the hand as I did,” grins Steve. There was one house in York Street then and the Boyd kids skated on the natural pond up Queenstown Hill.

He’d go deer hunting with Hec and family holidays consisted of eight family packed into the Falcon station wagon, tiny caravan in tow.
Ice froze inside the windows in the three boys’ bedroom. One early 1960s winter Hec spent weeks working underground in Arrowtown where the 10-inch (25cm) water main through town had frozen solid.

Sport took over in Steve’s teens, he and brother Murray a dynamic tennis doubles duo cleaning up Central Otago championship titles and A-grade competitions at a young age, travelling far and wide. Steve was Number 1 seed for Central Otago.

“Mum was a bit worried about us getting on the booze as we were quite young,” he grins.

He’d also played for the Otago Secondary Schoolboys Rugby Team and cleaned up school athletics champs, to the frustration of his schoolmates.

Rugby was huge in winter, Steve captaining the Wakatipu Rugby Club to three Central Otago Competition wins in a row – a local first.
Steve played for Otago Country for a number of years, the highlight beating Metropolitan in 1987 as it was full of Otago players.

“We toured Queensland one year and the North Island another.” It was a full life travelling from Milton down to Tapanui for rugby practice. There wasn’t a day spare.

However, then Otago coach Laurie Mains, later All Black coach, told the boys they’d need to move to Dunedin to be eligible for selection.
Steve loved the mountains and outdoors so stayed put, playing for Wakatipu for 20 years until his accident.

He wasn’t only a winner in sport, but even won a Queenstown Flower Show one year. “I picked a flower from someone’s garden and won,” he chuckles.

Steve started a plumbing apprenticeship with Hec at 18 quickly earning the nickname ‘S-Bend’, in a nod to the plumbing monkeys on the PG Tips Tea TV ads back then.

He’d been helping Hec for years as a kid and took over the Brecon Street business in the late 1980s, early 90s. “I remember spending weeks at Coronet Plaza one winter. The whole place exploded with copper pipe leaks, room after room, shutting the hotel down.”

In 1988 he married Aussie wife of 36 years Wendy, an early childhood teacher finishing her OE who was working at Eichardt’s Pub.

They moved to Glenorchy where, unfortunately, Steve had his accident. He may have escaped alive with just rods, screws and pins after that chute collapsed but the intense pain left him eventually battling a major dependency on prescription painkillers. It was a mental battle as much as a physical one, Steve successfully kicking the prescription medications and now focusing his energies on fundraising and helping the Glenorchy community.

The competitive streak’s still there. Steve plays for the Glenorchy Darts Team, competing in Wakatipu leagues, tournaments raising money for kids, mostly Glenorchy School.

He also spends a lot of time volunteering at Glenorchy Golf Club managing water systems. “Between darts and golf, we’ve raised 10s of thousands of dollars for the local community, the Golf Club also fundraising for Curekids.”

Steve, brother Al and wife Wendy held on to Hec’s forestry block and Arthur’s Point farm, and Steve and wife Wendy now split their time between Glenorchy and Arthur’s Point. “It’s been a really big journey and a massive battle, but I’m on the other side of it now and it feels good.”