Hmm, where do I begin. Lets start with this quote: “I am a New Zealand hero, nobody in the history of New Zealand has done what I have done. I have turned down two knighthoods but it is just not in my nature to go around crowing about it.”
We know he wasn't into crowing about things - his style was one of understatement as evidenced by his modest abode and VW car but the intent is clear.
In this statement we can clearly see that he thinks he is a great man - indeed the greatest in New Zealand. Would you not trust the greatest NZ'er.
And if we want a bit more of a feel of AH the man we can look to see how he regards himself. "If I had wasted my money on flash cars and houses, I would be a hero." Bit hard to reconcile this one because he reckons he is NZ's greatest hero yet he didn't waste his money on cars. But the car gives some material evidence to what he was thinking and what he was trying to do: “It’s my sign. Accountants always waste their money on cars, and people see that I drive this and they can trust me with their money.”
Not only does he think he's a hero he also reckons he's not only bright ( few would dispute that) but the brightest when he says “The problem with the statutory management is that there is nobody with the brains to understand.” the problem for AH is that he has underestimated the Stat Man's - they do have the brains - its just taking a while to unravel the web AH is responsible for weaving.
Or what about when hew says "For me it has always been a matter of trust and personal integrity to investors. In a crisis like that, you do what you have to do to save the business.” So from this we can interpret he always wanted to foster a relationship based on trust. we now know that his booking keeping wasn't up to much (perhaps there was no need to keep detailed accounts when you trust people) and he lent money loaned from people who trusted he would put it into safe havens - not dodgy business people who when asked to cough up the cash do a runner.
AH didn't need to advertise like Hotchin and co. it wasn't his style. AH's style was to keep the brethren happy and let word of mouth do the work for him. it was his style to be generous with other peoples money and you only need ot look at the reports of Aorangi and HWm for evidence of that.[/QUOTE]