IN MANY ways Baron Walter Rothschild was your typical Tory MP. Very rich indeed, never married, but had at least two long-term mistresses and at least one illegitimate daughter.

He retired from his family bank aged 40 to concentrate on politics, zoos and zionism.

His overwhelming interest was zoology and he toured the world observing and collecting wild animals many of which he brought back to his private zoo and museum at Tring Park in Hertfordshire.

A particular favourite was the giant Galapagos tortoises that he rode around his grounds.   

He was perhaps the leading zionist of his time and he worked to formulate the draft declaration for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. 

On November 2 1917 he received a letter from the foreign secretary Arthur Balfour addressed to his private home at 148 Piccadilly, London. He was told to pass it on to other zionists.

In this letter the British government declared its support for the establishment in Palestine of “a national home for the Jewish people.”

This letter became known as the notorious Balfour Declaration.

It was a typical arrogant bit of British imperialist politics. Here we were giving a country we didn’t own away — Palestine was then part of the Ottoman empire — and not caring a damn about the Palestinian people who had lived there for thousands of years.

Even so Britain did suggest that “... it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”

Sadly that footnote didn’t take long to be completely forgotten.

Now let move forward 50 years or so on. A fraternal delegation of British trades unionists are touring Tito’s Yugoslavia. After an afternoon visiting farms and factories they have reached a castle in Slovenia.

The multi course evening dinner was impressive; the folk music and dancing equally entertaining. The actual meal, a meaty spicy stew, a Slovenian speciality, had been delicious. But what was the curious dark gamey meat? One or two bones in the dish indicated a tiny animal but lack of a common language got in the way of a correct identification.

The best the young and rather embarrassed student acting as translator could manage was “mouse.” She reluctantly announced it with predictable and dire consequences to the spirit of international working-class solidarity.

It was years later when I discovered just what that “mouse” really was, and its connection with Rothschild. I found the connection in the fascinating Natural History Museum in Tring in Hertfordshire — once Rothschild’s private zoo and museum.

That Slovenian delicacy was the edible dormouse (glis glis). The Romans had eaten them first. They kept them in terracotta jars with wheat and honey and the little animals stuffed themselves to twice their normal size ready for roasting.

When I lived in Hertfordshire edible dormice made their home in my loft. They played noisily among the boxes and papers. I never tried to cook them.

The animal — looking just like a miniature squirrel — had been introduced by Rothschild at his country seat at Tring Park, where many had escaped and spread across Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.

Although regarded as a pest the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 prohibits certain methods of killing them and removing them may require a licence. The law isn’t very clear on whether you can cook and eat them.

Rothschild used his great wealth to collect and import all kinds of rare and exotic species from all over the world. His private museum and its contents were finally given to the nation in 1937. Today it is a branch of the Natural History Museum, open to the public and well worth a visit.

Rothschild loved messing about with nature. He bred hybrids between zebras and horses — you can see the result, a stuffed hybrid foal, at museum — and was frequently seen driving zebra-drawn carriages into the local town. Once even to Buckingham Palace.

Another great, or perhaps tiny, obsession of this curious baron was flea circuses and the Tring museum has an amazing collection of these strange phenomena. Fleas in costumes from all over the world.  

Rothschild introduced many live exotic birds and animals into his Tring estate and, not surprisingly many, like the edible dormouse, escaped and are now living locally or in some cases all over Britain.

The edible dormouse is the largest of all dormice, up to seven inches long plus a five inch bushy tail. It weighs up to five ounces but can stuff itself to twice that weight before hibernation or cooking.

Like a lizard the dormouse, when grabbed by the tail, can allow its skin to break easily and slide off the underlying bone, allowing the animal to escape. The exposed vertebrae then fall off and a stumpy tail regrows.

I am very fond of the pretty edible dormouse, far too fond to even think about eating them.

But I am far less fond of the man who did so much to establish the state of Israel much to the hurt and suffering of the original Palestinian people for whom it had been homeland for thousands of years.

I just wish the baron had stuck to zebras, giant tortoises and zoos.