During this time he met the young Labour politician Barbara Anne Betts, whom he married in July 1944.
[4][5] In 1944 he became deputy editor-in-chief of the Picture Post and, later, its editor and publisher, before being succeeded by Tom Hopkinson.
In that year the first elections to the Greater London Council (GLC) were held.
He was chosen by the Labour Party group on the GLC to be an alderman, serving a six-year term until 1970.
By a Letters Patent of 18 June 1974 he was created a life peer with the title Baron Castle, of Islington in Greater London,[6] and was a member of the House of Lords until his death.