He’s helped retrieve bodies after the 1968 Wahine disaster, outsmarted thugs and bikies descending on Te Anau and delivered the good and the bad news to families around the globe in his 32-year Police career, also clocking hundreds of mostly voluntary Search and Rescue missions.

A valued member of the Southern Lakes Helicopters team managing compliance for the past 20 years, at 75, former longtime Te Anau Police Sergeant Lloyd Matheson is finally retiring soon.

“When the now Sir Richard (Hayes) finally convinced me to work for him I said I’d give him five years and 20 years later I’m still here,” he grins.

That aviation compliance career has seen him travel overseas on a voluntary basis representing not only Southern Lakes Helicopters at conferences for the Aviation Industry Association Helicopter Division, but more recently as national president for 10 years, now a Life Member of that organisation.

Prior to that, after leaving the Police in 2002 Lloyd was heavily involved with the Police Association in Southland for 30 years.

Chairperson of the Otago branch and 12 years as Southland delegate, he was honoured to be made a Life Member in 2002.

Lloyd addressing the Aviation Industry Association Helicopter Division awards as their president. Photo: Supplied

“I find the welfare programme more appealing and enjoyable than fighting crime,” he says.

Search and Rescue has been his passion though – “it’s the better aspect of policing”, and the highlight of his career has been working in a “really supportive community”.

“You’re only as good as your community and they’re really receptive, not much serious crime,” he says.

While he may be retiring to focus on the family microgreen business with son Glenn Matheson, also a former cop just moved back as winchman like Dad for Southern Lakes Helicopters, Lloyd won’t ever really retire.

There have been one too many unsolved tragedies in Fiordland during his time that remain a mystery, including two plane crashes in which the wreckages have never been found.

“There was a massive search for Father Crosbie, who’d been the Police Chaplain in Dunedin, and was flying with his farming friends from Big Bay,” Lloyd recalls.

Seven on board a flight to Milford on Christmas Day also disappeared without trace, both accidents in the late 1980s or 90s.

“I’d like to solve those before I pass on,” he says.

Starting out in a two-man station, with his wife Linda - the local volunteer ambulance paramedic, they’ve often had to go beyond the call of duty in small, friendly Te Anau.

When a young Aussie barmaid fell about 5 metres over an abutment and into the Cascade Creek suffering head injuries the Mathesons took her in for three weeks after she was released from Dunedin Hospital. “We became a bit of a mental health halfway house too at times.”

It was all a far cry from what a young, Dunedin-raised 17-year-old Lloyd had imagined when he enquired about joining the Police in 1967.

“I was really into artwork and was in the early stages of a signwriting career when I stupidly applied for some information about joining the Police cadetship programme,” he grins.

Lloyd Mathieson and fellow Police officer Tim. Photo: Supplied

“Next thing the Green Island policeman was knocking on my door urging me to join up.”

At 18 he was off to Trentham for the 19-month course. “It was my first time away from home – a new adventure, with three other Dunedin guys and we became lifelong friends.”

Lloyd was about to come home for his first term break when the Wahine sank in Wellington Harbour on 10 April 1968.

“That was my first search and rescue. I always remember that day. You just do what you’ve been taught,” he says.

“We didn’t have any flash SAR gear like now, just old trenchcoats and a blue uniform.”

Welington Police had called in the cadets to retrieve survivors and bodies from the shoreline.

There were a few runs to the Water Tower for sleeping in and College exams were held every Saturday morning, Lloyd graduating near the top of his wing class.

He was keen on dog handling, but back then single policemen weren’t allowed to have dog.

“You had to be married and a settled, family man to have a dog so I always got teased that when I got married it was only so I could have a dog,” Lloyd grins.

He got his choice of first posting to Dunedin in 1969, transferring in 1970 to the National Headquarters Information Centre in Wellington where he worked in the Police Information Section, manually entering criminal histories, typing them up into card systems, and searching histories for Police clearance.

“We’d get messages to check via a gas tube shute from the Teleprinter Section – no computers in those days, then check through alphabetical order drawers.”

Staff were pulled in from around NZ for three-month stints, but as the only single cop, at 20 Lloyd had to stay a year.

Lloyd Mathieson has had a long association with Southern Lakes Helicopters. Photo: Supplied

“We did checks for some serious murders that were headline news at the time, like the Crew murders, a lot of support work and extra name checks. It was massive.”

In 1971 Lloyd was called to help break up a Springbok Rugby sit in protest in Wellington’s Cuba Street, while during 1981’s Springbok Tour of NZ he crewed on an Air Force Bell 47 used as an aerial surveillance platform based out of Invercargill Police Station.

“I learned later that Bruce McLeod and I were instructed by Sergeant Warwick Maloney to draw matches to see who worked on that tour but Bruce, being older, didn’t tell me that and said he had to go!”

Lloyd had met wife of 53 years Linda on the beat back working in Dunedin – Linda then working at Dawson’s Jewellers and part-time nursing, and they married in 1972.

There was a lot of relieving at one-man stations like Waikouaiti Palmerston, Alexandra and Roxburgh: “It was the heyday of riots with bikie gangs at the Blossom Festival.”

Then the adventure began when, as a dad of two kids under five, Lloyd scored a job at the two-man Te Anau Station. And yes, police dog Kent came too, a “choice pup” now buried at Te Anau Station.

They loved the small, friendly community, de facto Nana, Narnie, over the fence becoming part of the family.

“I replaced Don Wisely who said it was quiet, but we had something like 19 fatalities in the first six months, multiple car and helicopter accidents and deer shooters getting killed. It was definitely a SAR station.”

Here began a 13-year partnership with fellow cop Tim Henderson, both awarded a QSM in the mid-80s for their services to SAR and the community.

“Lloyd’s been called to too many serous road accidents involving tourists, especially on the Milford Road, and rescued many more tourists after heart attacks and accidents on the Milford and Routeburn Tracks.

“It’s been a bit of a League of Nations,” he says.

Wet days were most strenuous back in the peak deer recovery years – when live venison recovery boys, local fishermen and East Coast shearing gangs all earning big money would congregate at the THC public bar.

Lloyd lending a helping hand as a volunteer at Camp Quality. Photo: Supplied

“We needed help from the fire brigade on a number of occasions to help quell the fighting.”

On his first day on call, he and Tim hadn’t had time to don their uniforms when the call came that a fight had broken out at the bottle store, grabbing the dog and their jackets instead.

“We arrived and this big, burly guy, who was Hannibal’s (Sir Richard Hayes) shooter said, ‘Who the hella you representing the Queen dressed like that,” Lloyd chuckles.

“Colin Yates, who was later tragically killed in a helicopter crash, taught us how to dress more appropriately to represent the Queen.”

There was another big fight involving an Aussie Rugby tour and the venison boys the day of a local helicopter pilot’s funeral.

“Sometimes we had callouts that involved Linda in the ambulance too!”

There was a shooting in a shearer’s quarters, and the Invercargill CIB guys borrowed Lloyd’s private car during the chase in that inquiry.

“The offender rammed my car, and the Police told me to claim my personal insurance, but no one would pay. The offender paid me a minute amount over a number of years.”

Lloyd had the last laugh though during the late 80’s Invercargill floods.

Lloyd with the latest addition to their family - Hazel, aged 4 months. Photo: Supplied

“Tim had arrested a guy in Manapouri headed for Te Anau when I got a call to say a posse of renegades (his friends) were coming to the station to release him.”

Also a local Fire Brigade volunteer for years, Lloyd called the fire guys for help.

“We were shuffling a prisoner out from the back cell ready when they met us at the front door and the prisoner said,” I think I’ll stay,” Lloyd grins.

Some good “strategic manoeuvring managed to pick them off quietly”.

With all that experience you’re just best not to mess with Lloyd.

Sue Fea is a senior journalist with more than 40-years experience covering police, social and general news in the southern regions.