Jim Boult: Former Queenstown Mayor pays tribute to Sir Michael Hill

Sir Michael Hill's being remembered for his love of the arts. 

He died yesterday aged 86, after a cancer battle. 

Hill's chain of self-named jewellery stores began in Whangārei, before becoming a global brand.  

Former Queenstown Mayor Jim Boult says he's well-known for his Queenstown golf course 'the Hills', and the international violin competition he founded. 

He was also a cartoonist, publishing a weekly cartoon in the local newspaper, 'The Mountain Scene'. 

Boult told Mike Hosking Hill was one of those people who was never satisfied until they’d actually achieved something. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Michael Hill died yesterday eighty six. From that first store
in seventy nine to three hundred ish today, he's changed retailing,
of course, he reshaped advertising. He also made Central Otago
a more beautiful place. And Jim Bold, former Queenstown miror,
of course and a close friend, is with us. Jim,
morning to you, Good morning, Mike. I thought Rob five
said it, well, he's a force of nature. That's fair,
isn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, that's very fair. He's a very unique person and
did enormously well in business. But he was a philanthropist
and a real vision who I mean, who else takes
a piece of land and turns it into a world
class golf course?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Just to do the timing for me when you arrived
there and your job and him reforming the place, because
when I originally met him, he was he had a
little Part three thing at his house before, but the
Hills ever came along, So how did that work? Time wise?

Speaker 2 (00:49):
So look, he would have moved to Queenstown late eighties,
perhaps early nineties, certainly thirty five years or more ago.
I met him when he came to town and lived
not far from me than he and Christine built a
nice but moderate house on the piece of land they built.

(01:12):
He then came up with the idea of creating a
I think it was a couple of holes for golf
around his house, and that suddenly morphed into the Hills,
which of course hosted the New Zealand Open and as
rated as one of the best golf courses around full style.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
I think that's probably sort of sums them up, doesn't it,
Because I mean, he didn't have to do that, and
then having done it, he could have done it to
a much lesser extent, and that was sort of him,
wasn't it. It was he began to do it and do
it properly.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Oh, absolutely he was. You know. I think he's on
record as saying, yeah, money is important, but he also
liked doing things. He was one of those people who
were never satisfied and they said, actually achieved something. You know.
Take also the Michael Hill violin competition. Not too many
people go and start something like that, which launched the

(02:04):
careers of many talented musicians. Do you reckon?

Speaker 1 (02:09):
He represents an age somebody texted me earlier and I
thought it was interesting. Bob Jones has passed on, and
now Michael Hill Colin gil Trap last year. Does he
represent an age in a time?

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Do you think, Well, maybe that's right, Mike, Maybe the
great age of the entrepreneurs, the people who went out
and did things before we all maybe got a bit
restricted by some of the rules that we live with today.
But it takes quite quite a mind to do the
sort of thing those people that you've mentioned do. And

(02:41):
you know, look, I hope more of them come along.
But Michael was, as I said before, truly unique, a talented,
violent in his o.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yes, he was, yeah, very much. So listen, I know
you're on holiday, and I know you're in Asia, and
I know it's the very early hours of the morning,
but I do appreciate you getting up early for us
very much. Indeed, go well with them. Nice to talk
Jim Bolt, former Queenstown. He also, of course, the Michael
Hill success story was if he always explained that you
set the stores up the same and you gravitate towards

(03:11):
the center, and that's the way the counters are shaped
and how they look, and so how you feel when
you walk into the store. All that sort of thing
was his thinking. And that's before you get to the advertising,
of course, which he was particularly famous for great bloke
Michael Hill. For more from the mic Asking Breakfast, listen
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