First Man impressions

In his own words, Clarke Gayford reveals what it’s like to share life with a global political star.

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On the one hand, it’s not all that unusual to be in a relationship and have your partner get a work promotion. It’s something couples often celebrate together, maybe with a nice dinner out. However, when your girlfriend is suddenly promoted to leader of a major political party, seven weeks out from an election, well, the dinner out, along with nearly everything else in your life, suddenly gets put on the back-burner.

I was away filming a sunken warship off the coast of Australia when things in New Zealand had suddenly started to change. I’d had a hurried call with Jacinda, where she told me what she thought was happening just moments before I sunk 27 metres down to the bottom, off the Sunshine Coast.

I will never forget the words yelled at me from the Australian boat operator as I surfaced 45 minutes later, “Mate! You might want to call home - ya missus has had a promotion!”

From that moment, things have never been the same again and during the wild ride of the next six years, we never really had a proper chance to reflect on it all. Life was simply too busy. That was, until Jacinda decided to write a book and I decided to pull out all the footage I’d shot during her time in office to see if I could make something with it.