Caller of the Night: Memories of Michael Hill

With the passing of Sir Michael Hill earlier this week, Roman asked his callers to ring up with their Michael Hill memories!

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Turning back the clerk with Romans call eight hundred eighty
ten eighty.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
It's in my day on news talk.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Roy yep, get a Roy.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, how you doing?

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Oh yeah, Roy? Good? Thank you? Yeah you're alive and kicking,
aren't you. That's good.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Sure, I'm going to talk to you something about Michael
Hill Juela. Yes, yeah, I met the man many years ago, now,
so I was I was just nineteen at the time
and I'm forty nine now, so that would what was
that thirty thirty years ago? It was I was working

(00:38):
at the store, and it was in lower huts and
it was it was before it moved to the mall,
so it was this it was this dark They called
it an Aladdin cave kind of look. I don't have
to remember it from those days, but yeah, And he
would come around and meet the staff, and I just

(01:01):
thought he was fantastic.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Did he tell you that he was coming or was
it always a bit of a mystery He just turned up?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Uh No, I think sometimes he just I think he
just would turn up sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
That's the way to do it, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
I remember the first time I met him, he said
to me, have you read my book? And and and
I was. I was pleased to say I had which
I had here must have been a copy in the
in the back, And yeah, I was. I was able
to say, yes, I've read your book. And yeah, and
I was. I was an aw by. He dressed so

(01:36):
well and and he was just he was just lovely
to his stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Oh that's good to know. That's a really nice thing
to be able to repeat. What was the book on?
Was it just a biography of him in his life?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
So we're going back, we're going back to cities. But
I remember from what I remember from the book, it
was particularly what stood out to me was, you know,
has he had what was it? He he had a
house and he had been working hard, but it burned down.
But that was the catalyst for him to say, right,
that's it. Now, I'm I'm taking this to another level,

(02:10):
you know. Yeah, And so it was. It was a
good book from what I remember.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
And how long did you work for Michael Hill Jeweler.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
I worked with them for three years, so I ended
up I ended up meeting them lots of times. Yeah, Oh,
this is this is how things have changed. There was
So I was, I was young and a bit of
you know, playing rugby at the time, I grabbed a
guy who stole some some what some G shocks from

(02:38):
us and Michael and these days you'd probably get on
report for it. But he sent me, he wrote me
a personal letter saying, great job catching the thief stealing
the G shocks. Well you wouldn't. You wouldn't do that
these days, would you know?

Speaker 1 (02:52):
You wouldn't. And there was a previous caller who wasn't
very enamored by G shocks and said he had problem
with the straps and it wasn't good quality. Wasn't Michael
Hill who made them? Did you always sell those watches?

Speaker 2 (03:05):
They were from they were they were from the Cassio company.
They were a large Japanese company, and they were you know,
they were good watches. And I don't know, it wasn't
every every jewelry shop sold them. It wasn't you know,
it wasn't exclusive to Michael Hill at all.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
But and tell me about that that that Aladdin's Cave look,
because I know there's a lot of smoke and mirrors
with the lighting right, you've got to have the right
lighting to really show the diamonds off it is that
is that something you're always focused on and polishing the
heck out of everything, so there's no fingerprints on it.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
And yeah, yeah, that's true. When you when you were there,
you've got to keep everyone has thrown. They called it
an area of responsibility. And you know, you were you
were what for the week or a month or something,
you had an area and if you were in charge
of the diamonds or the gold, you had to you
had to keep your area. Pretty yeah, pretty well, I

(03:59):
mean for for a young young guy like me at
that at that time. I mean I'm going back, you know.
So it was a nineteen twenty twenty one, so it
was great. The regional managers were were fantastic. They had
they had a sales system that at that time I
took to and I did. I did get in trouble

(04:22):
with him one time though. He he asked me about
there was another jewelry shop in Wellington it was it
was called Partridge and he and he said to me, oh,
what what do you think about, you know, the Partridge Jeweler.
And to be honest, they they were absolutely lovely. At
the time. See, mother thought he had he had lots

(04:44):
of shops at the time, so he had jewelry spread
out around his you know, a couple of hundred shops,
you see, whereas part kind of had as a sense
all the eggs in one basket, so they were succession,
I said, I said, oh, I was thinking to myself,
should you know, I thought to myself, Oh, no, I'll
just I'll just be honest with you. Yeah, I said, oh, look,

(05:05):
you know, look Haartridge. Oh that they look. They look lovely,
you know. And he said to me, and he wasn't
happy at all, and he said, well, you'll be a
dead duck and water with an attitude.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Like that, because you just made me think of Stuart
Dawson's too. Stuart Dawson's corner as a famous jeweler in Wellington,
on the corner of Willison Lampton.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Key, isn't it yep, yep, yep, yep for a while? Two?

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Are they still there?

Speaker 2 (05:32):
I believe so, But I've been out of the market
for a long time. But I said, for for a
young for a young guy at the time, it was,
it was, it was fantastic. It was fantastic for me too, lovely.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Well, it's nice of you to call. I was asking
people to call who had some form of a relationship,
interactions with Sir Michael Hill and mere you are, and
talking very fondly about him as well. It's always nice
to be remembered, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Oh well, my presents.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
The time is cool, raise the rum and have some f.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Grow away. You work to be done.