Reporters Jeremy James, Jeanne la Chard, Desmond Wilcox, Harold Williamson
This week: It's Ours. Whatever They Say

A little boy is killed falling off a roof in Islington. The parents of children in the area get together in anger and despair - because their children have nowhere safe to play. There is a council-owned site which, they think, would be ideal for an adventure playground, but the local borough council seems indifferent. It is impossible, they say. They need the site for a new block of flats, a car park and a scout hall. The mothers and children become militant. They decide to occupy the piece of vacant land, to build themselves an adventure playground, to defy the council. The council sets out to crush the rebellion. They send in bulldozers and ask the police to arrest the parents.

This week's Man Alive is Jonathan Power's day-to-day record of their remarkable battle. And in the studio we ask: is law-breaking and defiance now the only way left in which progress can be achieved for people like the mothers of Islington?