"Let me take him up to the hills at weekends, Mrs Allison. That'll keep him out of trouble." Those words, uttered by a neighbour's son to my mother in 1955, sparked a flame in me that has burned brightly ever since. Frank was a hiker, a clean living lad in his late teens. I was 13, in trouble with the law and set to appear at the juvenile court – again. My mother agreed to the expedition and the next Saturday saw me and Frank on the train, from Gorton, east Manchester, to Hayfield, a small Pennine village, nestling below the lower slopes of Kinder Scout.

We set off along Kinder Road, passing the quarry – a path I have trodden countless times since – and the first sight of Kinder, the "dark peak", has never failed to lift my spirits and imbue me with a sharp sense of freedom. That liberation, for me and all those who tramp the Peak District, came at a price. In 1932, five men were jailed for their part in the mass trespass of Kinder Scout, when about 500 men and women took to the hills in defiance of the law, which then decreed those hills and open moorland the sole province of the landed gentry, enabling them to shoot grouse for a few days each August.

As the men's spokesman, 21-year-old Benny Rothman was to say in his defence, at Derby Assizes: "We ramblers, after a hard week's work, in smokey towns and cities, go out rambling for relaxation and fresh air. And we find the finest rambling country is closed to us … Our request, or demand, for access to all peaks and uncultivated moorland is nothing unreasonable." The jury, mostly county establishment, thought otherwise, and the five were jailed for between four and six months.

By all accounts, the protest was intended to be peaceful, but keepers, employed by the Duke of Devonshire and armed with sticks, confronted the marchers. The Guardian recorded: "The protesters fought a brief but vigorous hand-to-hand struggle with a number of keepers specially enrolled for the occasion. This they won with ease, and then marched to Ashop Head, where they held a meeting before returning in triumph to Hayfield … There will be plenty of bruises carefully nursed in Gorton and other parts of Manchester tonight."

Though the protest cost Rothman and his fellow marchers their liberty, their actions created a tide that could not be stemmed. Three weeks after the trespass, some 10,000 ramblers held a protest rally at nearby Castleton; the right-to-roam movement was on the march. What Roy Hattersley, the former deputy leader of the Labour party, was later to describe as "the most successful direct action in British history" would lead, in 1951, to the creation of the first national park. Fittingly, it was the Peak District, described as the "lungs of the industrial north". In 2000, freedom-to-roam legislation was passed, finally making lawful what Rothman and his comrades marched for. Next week, a festival will celebrate the 80th anniversary of their derring-do.

Frank, if by chance you are reading this, sadly, you were wrong; your kind intervention did not keep me "out of trouble" but it enriched my life beyond measure. Thanks.

• Eric Allison is the Guardian's prison correspondent. Kinder 80 will be launched at the Moorland Centre, Edale, on April 24. More details of the festival at http://kindertrespass.com