Proverbs 17:12 neatly expresses the dangers and seriousness of maternal ursine grief: "Let a man meet a bear robbed of her cubs, rather than a fool in his folly." 

The question on everyone's lips in all the remaining pubs across Hadleigh is: are Jimmy and Michaela Doherty foolish or wise in turning their 'farm' at Wherstead into something akin to a safari park? To be fair they have appended '& wildlife park' to the place's title for a while now. 

This is usually followed by the urgent moral rejoinder: so should we visit the place now or not?

In packing their very many hectares with all manner of carnivores rarely found on the average dinner plate, Jimmy's Farm is stress-testing the old adage 'all publicity is good publicity' to its utter limits.

Mr and Mrs Doherty are intriguing businesspeople, one might say celebrities, adroit at stirring up controversies the better to maximise visitors. In that sense, I say good on 'em!

But have they overstepped the proverbial by bringing in wolves and bears, and not just any old type of bear - polars in fact, to Suffolk?

in the case of the former, I'm broadly in favour. Obviously, wolves are a breed native to these isles. It is said that the last wolf was despatched in 1380 in Cumbria - not a million miles from where I was born and raised, actually.

However, reported sightings continued into the seventeenth century. I myself recall once spotting a furry face of malice in the eponymously-named wood near Hadders. Of course that could also have been a member of the local gentry out for a bit of dogging. Plus ca change.

So J&M's acquisition of a pair of the species could be viewed as their philanthropic contribution to the broader rewilding efforts presently underway to return some of our ecosytems to their pre-modern conditions. 

All will be well - until, that is, the lupine two abscond as, dear reader, they inevitably will. 

Imagine the chaos they will cause as they drape protest banners over the Orwell Bridge declaring 'Just Stop Sheep'?

Or rock up at the Woolpack in Ipswich or even The Ram in Hadleigh, as and when it ever re-opens, menacingly demanding lamb with all the trimmings?

Or start harassing Hadleigh's grannies at U3A meetings?

But these incidents will be as nothing compared with the current brouhaha regarding the polar bears - very much a non-native species, even during the Little Ice Age.

I mention them in the plural, yet of course there is only one still extant. Miki, son of Ewa (sounds all a bit Biblical, doesn't it?) sadly died on arriving at J&M's rural emporium. 

Now a 50% accidental kill rate is something that even James 'Foxy' Buckle's hounds can't claim - yet.

Perhaps the wee scamp noticed that J&M hadn't actually got round to seeking permission for his and his ma's new enclosure and was distraught at the possibility of his being turfed out of yet another location?

But fair dos to the Dohertys, it must have been all too easy to overlook the small requirement to comply with planning requirements whilst seeking PR glory?

And yet the whole story of how and why Ewa had a one-way ticket booked for her to Suffolk from Sweden seems less-than-glorious.

J&M's people claimed a zoo in the land of Abba was going bust and decanting out its stock. Those animals that failed to be rehomed would, apparently, be euthanised.

Except, thanks to the investigative brilliance of Fr Derek (other local news titles were once again asleep at the keyboard as our little scribbler scoffed their porridge), this claim has not stood up - alas, rather like little Miki - to scrutiny.

I'm sure - as with the planning permission boob - this is just one of those things and J&M will soon be PR-ing confirmation from Orsa Park that had Jimmy not opened his commercial arms wide, than Ewa would have ended up stuffed in a museum in Uppsala or worse, appearing on daytime TV in Finland.

I'm sure that the last thing J&M would now want is to create the impression that this whole venture has been hurried through and that real welfare concerns remain for Ewa and indeed any other bears brough over to join her.

For that would, indeed, be the most foolish folly they could commit in trying to boost their footfall.

Lesser reputations have been mauled for less. 

RIP Miki...

Jimmys Farm built enclosures without planning permission