A Balans Story – Robbie Blackhall-Miles

Robbie Blackhall-Miles is a plantsman and conservationist based in North Wales. I had heard from a friend at Balans that the restaurant had been background to a pivotal moment in his life, and witnessed its trajectory change, so I called him to hear his story.

Kind and soft-spoken, Robbie began by telling me that his story “is not unique by any stretch of the imagination,” in such a way that often precedes something remarkable. As a child, Robbie was interested in nature. The pond in his family’s garden was everything to him.

“I would keep woodlice in jam jars,” he tells me, “like a mini zoo”. As a teenager, he graduated to volunteering in the local zoo, working on the conservation of endangered birds. “It was my destiny as far as I was concerned.” Then puberty happened and Robbie’s world changed. He came out as gay to his school at the age of 15 and to his parents a year later. At the time, the age of consent for ‘same-sex acts’ was 21 and the UK government’s “Aids: Don’t Die of Ignorance” campaign was on every television screen in the country. “My parents were terrified. This translated into a lot of negative stuff that hasn’t been dealt with.”

His family and home community reacted so negatively to his sexuality that Robbie pushed against his youth and everything he thought he was going to be. “I realised I needed my own income; I couldn’t rely on my parents anymore. That parent-child relationship was lost to an extent.”

He left school and spent time in London, Frankfurt, and later Paris. He turned to modelling, hairdressing, and drag. The queer community in Soho and Camden were big influences on him. They brought with them the deep sense of connection and belonging that comes with a found family and community. But they also brought intense partying and a scene far older than him. “As a young person I was not really well equipped to deal with all that,” he tells me.

One day, things had finally reached a head. Robbie had a ticket back to North Wales in his pocket, no money, and all his bags. “I had been walking around London trying to figure out whether I wanted to go home and face what was there or stay. I was on the edge of being homeless if I had stayed in London, and that seemed like the preferable option. I was doing battle with myself,” he told me. It was a hot summer’s day. Soho was chaotic and bustling. Robbie found himself sitting outside Balans, “thinking about what the hell I was doing with my life”.

Balans in 1993

As he sat, a waiter took pity on him and kept pouring him coffee, knowing that Robbie did not have a pound to pay. In that moment, a piece of advice that a friend had given kept returning to him: that it was better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond. “I realised I could go back to North Wales and deal with whatever life would throw at me there. I would find myself in a position where I wasn’t stuck in the fashion world forever and get back to the things I loved.” With only his return ticket in his pocket, he carried his bags from Soho to Euston and boarded the train home.

Now working as a plantsman and conservationist and living with his partner in North Wales, Robbie tells me he has spent a lot of time trying to rationalise and figure out the past. I added that many of us never get around to opening that door. His life as a teenager is worlds away, he tells me, but his past and present life have found ways to be inextricably linked. A little while ago, while guiding a writer through the Welsh mountains, he found himself hiking next to her partner who happened to work at Balans. His memories of that hot summer’s day came rushing back. In many ways, opening the door to his younger self was unavoidable.

Robbie and his partner often take trips to London. Even if they don’t plan to, they gravitate towards Soho, sit outside Balans, and watch the world go by. “Soho has changed a lot over the 32 years since I came out. But at the same time, it hasn’t changed at all. The people-watching is almost as good as ever. Comptons is still there. I have the same amount of fun sat outside, but with a very different head on my shoulders.”

Looking back, Robbie tells me he has a huge debt to pay to the community that took in a child and raised it, and to the waiter in Balans who looked after him that day, “because they knew there was something major going on.”

When I asked Robbie what hopes he has for the future of Soho, he replied that he would like see it continue to evolve and refresh itself, “but we don’t forget the role it has in our culture, our place, and our battle.”

Robbie Blackhall-Miles works for the charity Plantlife, is an honorary associate professor in bio-sciences at the University of Nottingham and lectures in conservation at Bangor University. He recently reintroduced a stunning alpine plant, Rosy Saxifrage, to the wild in Snowdonia, where it has not been seen since 1962.

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The author would like to thank Robbie for his time, openness, and vulnerability, and for sharing his story.