Hatred of him was aflame', and he added: 'No insults were too gross to hurl at him. One, of course, the Dardanelles fiasco, regarded as his particular crime, was always brought up.... The opposition were determined to shout him down. He was always admirably self-controlled and good-tempered, and he never failed to quell the opposition and get a hearing.' Whenever Churchill spoke, he was confronted by a vociferous group of hecklers, whom he dubbed 'the Socialist travelling circus'. To one question about the Dardanelles, on November 27, he replied: 'What do you know about that? The Dardanelles might have saved millions of lives.' And he continued: 'Don't imagine I am running away from the Dardanelles. I glory in it.'41 On December 3 Churchill was in London, where he spoke to large, noisy meetings at Finsbury Park, Shepherd's Bush and Walthamstow. After his final speech, at Walthamstow, he had to be escorted from the hall to his car by mounted police. Then, as the Leicester Daily Mercury reported: 'A vast crowd closed round the car hooting and jeering.