As a politician of the first rank in the Labour Party, a pioneering woman in the corridors of power, and a major force in Europe's Parliament, Barbara Castle is one of the most outstanding personalities in political life in recent decades. A key figure in post-war politics (Chairman of the Labour Party, Minister in the Wilson and the Callaghan governments), author of the Castle Diaries and In Place of Strife, she here writes her memoirs with frankness, from her childhood memories of the first Labour government up to the present day.