If ever we needed an insight into the pain of a couple struggling to have a child, we need only read the story of Deborah and Stephen Harris today.

For 14 years they have been trying to start a family.

In that time, Mrs Harris has suffered two ectopic pregnancies and nine miscarriages.

Every one of those 11 occasions marked the end of a dream. Every time Mrs Harris found she was pregnant, she and her husband would have started thinking about their future son or daughter.

And finally, after IVF, they came so very close to realising their dream, only for fate to deliver a hideously cruel blow. Mrs Harris sums up her feelings in four simple but heartfelt words – "It's just not fair."

Frankly, given what she and her husband have been through, it is amazing that they are still sane.

Yet they want to try IVF again in the hope they will become parents.

That means saving up, because it may not be provided on the NHS.

So something like the problem with their landline is highly important.

To its credit, Virgin is now trying to fix it and has given Mrs Harris a mobile phone and £50 credit.

What the Harrises need above all else is a little bit of luck. With it, they could one day be celebrating the successful birth of the baby for which they have waited so long.