So says an ardent environmentalist.

“Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population.”

Gawd, just think how wonderful earth would be without people. But who’d be here to notice the difference?

It’s an extreme stance which one might imagine is born from an unhappy childhood or an upbringing among parents who share similar, strong beliefs.

But nothing in Toni’s safe, middle- class upbringing gave any clues as to the views which would shape her adult life. The eldest of three daughters, she enjoyed a loving, close-knit family life.

She excelled at her Roman Catholic school, and her doting parents fully expected her to grow up, settle down and start a family of her own.

“When I finished school, I got a job in retail and at 19, I met my first husband,” says Toni.

“No sooner had we finished our wedding cake than all our relatives started to ask when they could expect a new addition to the family.

“I always told them that would never happen, but no one listened.

“When I was a child, I loved bird-watching, and in my teens that developed into a passion for the environment as well as the welfare of animals - I became a vegetarian when I was 15.

Fortunately for future generations, her spawn won’t exist to pass on similiar idiocies.