In addition to writing a book Churchill was interested in a political career. As a small boy playing with toy soldiers he had said that he would be a soldier first and go into Parliament later. He made his maiden political speech at a fete near Bath. He was delighted when the audience “cheered a lot at all the right places when I paused on purpose. At the end they clapped loudly and for quite a long time.” Some of his friends persuaded him to stand for election in Oldham, a working class constituency in Lancashire. After a bruising campaign he lost and returned to London “with those feelings of deflation which a bottle of champagne represents when it has been half-emptied and left uncorked for a night”.