It wasn't exactly where he expected the conversation to go when he sat beside Hillary Clinton.

But Welsh government minister Jeremy Miles found himself being offered to be set up on a blind date by the former US secretary of state, presidential candidate and First Lady.

Sitting beside her at an event at Swansea University, Mr Miles said he thanked her for referring to LGBT rights in a speech she had given, before explaining he was the first openly gay cabinet minister of a government in Wales.

He said: "She asked me if I had a partner and I was newly single at that point, and she very kindly offered to introduce me to some of her friends.

"Including - I won't mention his name - but a world leader.

"I did not say yes, I thought that would be a step too far."

It was a long way from his days as a teenager at Ystalyfera Comprehensive School in the Swansea valleys, where he says he went to bed wishing he would wake up and "not be gay".

On BBC Radio Wales' Walescast, the education and Welsh language minister said he struggled with a lack of positive gay role models and that his family "absolutely did not talk about it" at the time.

He said: "I knew that I was different and I wasn't quite sure what way exactly, but I knew that I was different. And obviously, by the time I became a teenager, I had a much stronger sense that I was gay, but you didn't see that anywhere, it wasn't talked about in school at all.

"My family, absolutely did not talk about it. And when I came out to them very much later, that was incredibly painful.

"There was a long time when I would have given anything not to feel like that. I used to go to bed praying that I would wake up not being gay.

"That has changed now, obviously, thankfully. But that kind of stuff, it leaves its mark. And I do think if I was to look back at my younger life, I think it probably affected my confidence, my sense of what I could achieve, what I should set my mind doing."

Mr Miles joined the Labour Party at 16, before studying law at New College, Oxford. This led to him playing a surprising role in the early days of the ITV series Downton Abbey.

As a lawyer for the US TV network NBC Universal, he was involved in selling the show, and met a lot of the cast.

Now, as education minister, Mr Miles said his struggles as a teenager have led to his passionate belief in "making school feel inclusive for everybody".

He reflected on criticism of the Welsh government's new relationships and sexuality education (RSE) curriculum, which saw a failed judicial review by a group of parents.

"You need to be able to see yourself and your feelings and your place in the world in some way reflected back at you in the life of the school," Mr Miles said.

He said the Welsh government was currently looking at "guidance to support schools, to support trans young people and the school community more broadly" which he hoped would be published before the end of the year.

Mr Miles refused to be drawn on whether his next career move would be as a candidate to be first minister when Mark Drakeford stands down before the next Senedd election in May 2026. (BBC)

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