Jenny-May unfiltered: 'MY STORY MAY SHOCK & SURPRISE'

How the Breakfast star found the courage to write her memoir

- Kasia De Vydt-Jillings

Looking through a lifetime of memories carefully collected and saved by her mum, Jenny-May Clarkson was stunned by her younger self's confidence and determination - and also found herself questioning, “Where did that girl go?'

She shares, “It was quite confronting actually, going through all the scrapbooks. There was this girl that I once was that I didn't recognise. The way I spoke and thought about things, and the confidence I seemed to exude - I was so resolute in what I was saying and the direction I was heading.”

The youngest of six children raised in the small King's Country township of Piopio, Breakfast host Jenny-May remembers knowing without a doubt when she was just 11 that she wanted to play for the Silver Ferns one day.

“I know there was self-doubt peppered throughout that time during my school days and eventually through my netball career,” she reflects. “But I guess from working in TV, you tend to be really tough on yourself and it got me thinking about how I am now compared to the confidence of that young woman 30 years ago.”

After finally agreeing to write a book on her life, Jenny-May found herself beside her husband Dean, combing through boxes and boxes of old news articles and old photos.

“I'd been asked four years ago to write a book,” tells Jenny-May, 51. “I said no because I didn't think my story was interesting, or that anyone would want to know or read about it.”

“My dad [Waka Coffin] was a very humble man and liked that humility was passed on to his children.

I felt I was blowing my own trumpet and it went against the grain for me.”