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Speaker 1: Michael Hill died yesterday eighty six. From that first store

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Speaker 1: in seventy nine to three hundred ish today, he's changed retailing,

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Speaker 1: of course, he reshaped advertising. He also made Central Otago

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Speaker 1: a more beautiful place. And Jim Bold, former Queenstown miror,

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Speaker 1: of course and a close friend, is with us. Jim,

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Speaker 1: morning to you, Good morning, Mike. I thought Rob five

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Speaker 1: said it, well, he's a force of nature. That's fair,

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Speaker 1: isn't it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's very fair. He's a very unique person and

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Speaker 2: did enormously well in business. But he was a philanthropist

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Speaker 2: and a real vision who I mean, who else takes

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Speaker 2: a piece of land and turns it into a world

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Speaker 2: class golf course?

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Speaker 1: Just to do the timing for me when you arrived

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Speaker 1: there and your job and him reforming the place, because

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Speaker 1: when I originally met him, he was he had a

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Speaker 1: little Part three thing at his house before, but the

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Speaker 1: Hills ever came along, So how did that work? Time wise?

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Speaker 2: So look, he would have moved to Queenstown late eighties,

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Speaker 2: perhaps early nineties, certainly thirty five years or more ago.

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Speaker 2: I met him when he came to town and lived

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Speaker 2: not far from me than he and Christine built a

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Speaker 2: nice but moderate house on the piece of land they built.

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Speaker 2: He then came up with the idea of creating a

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Speaker 2: I think it was a couple of holes for golf

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Speaker 2: around his house, and that suddenly morphed into the Hills,

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Speaker 2: which of course hosted the New Zealand Open and as

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Speaker 2: rated as one of the best golf courses around full style.

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Speaker 1: I think that's probably sort of sums them up, doesn't it,

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Speaker 1: Because I mean, he didn't have to do that, and

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Speaker 1: then having done it, he could have done it to

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Speaker 1: a much lesser extent, and that was sort of him,

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Speaker 1: wasn't it. It was he began to do it and do

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Speaker 1: it properly.

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Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely he was. You know. I think he's on

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Speaker 2: record as saying, yeah, money is important, but he also

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Speaker 2: liked doing things. He was one of those people who

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Speaker 2: were never satisfied and they said, actually achieved something. You know.

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Speaker 2: Take also the Michael Hill violin competition. Not too many

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Speaker 2: people go and start something like that, which launched the

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Speaker 2: careers of many talented musicians. Do you reckon?

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Speaker 1: He represents an age somebody texted me earlier and I

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Speaker 1: thought it was interesting. Bob Jones has passed on, and

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Speaker 1: now Michael Hill Colin gil Trap last year. Does he

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Speaker 1: represent an age in a time?

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Speaker 2: Do you think, Well, maybe that's right, Mike, Maybe the

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Speaker 2: great age of the entrepreneurs, the people who went out

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Speaker 2: and did things before we all maybe got a bit

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Speaker 2: restricted by some of the rules that we live with today.

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Speaker 2: But it takes quite quite a mind to do the

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Speaker 2: sort of thing those people that you've mentioned do. And

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Speaker 2: you know, look, I hope more of them come along.

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Speaker 2: But Michael was, as I said before, truly unique, a talented,

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Speaker 2: violent in his o.

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Speaker 1: Yes, he was, yeah, very much. So listen, I know

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Speaker 1: you're on holiday, and I know you're in Asia, and

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Speaker 1: I know it's the very early hours of the morning,

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Speaker 1: but I do appreciate you getting up early for us

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Speaker 1: very much. Indeed, go well with them. Nice to talk

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Speaker 1: Jim Bolt, former Queenstown. He also, of course, the Michael

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Speaker 1: Hill success story was if he always explained that you

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Speaker 1: set the stores up the same and you gravitate towards

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Speaker 1: the center, and that's the way the counters are shaped

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Speaker 1: and how they look, and so how you feel when

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Speaker 1: you walk into the store. All that sort of thing

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Speaker 1: was his thinking. And that's before you get to the advertising,

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Speaker 1: of course, which he was particularly famous for great bloke

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Speaker 1: Michael Hill. For more from the mic Asking Breakfast, listen

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Speaker 1: live to news talks. It'd be from six am weekdays,

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