Chris Johns

Are you surprised that a woman would say that?

Yeah, I would agree with you.

I think that men and women do.

Everybody deals with these things differently.

It isn't gender based.

I've met lots of women in the last few months who have really not wanted to go anywhere near talking to me.

Well, I don't know is the honest answer.

It could be they're repressed Brits rather than gender-based.

It's part of our culture to be more repressed than it is in your culture, for example.

We do death grieving very differently in Britain compared to Ireland.

I've had experiences of both.

My daughter died while I lived in Ireland, and I experienced that particular form of grief.

in an Irish context.

And I can tell you it's very different to how we do things over here.

The list of differences is a long one.

I distinguish between people rather than genders or nationalities.

The basic distinction that I've learned is that when people ask you, is there anything I can do?

They come in one of two guises.

One is the people who really want the answer to that question.

and those that don't, they really don't want to know.