If you can remember 1967, as they say, you weren’t there. Any recall of the Summer of Love, of wearing a flower in your hair to flock to Haight-Ashbury with the new Sgt Pepper album under your arm, nursing hope of sexual abandon, should have long ago evaporated in a puff of grass.

It was a remarkable summer, the brief zenith of hippydom. It began in January with a mass gathering in a San Francisco park, and was declared over in October, when the city’s peace-loving dropouts held a mock funeral for the death of the hippy. However, according to an opinion poll conducted for Reader’s Digest, the ethos of the drug-fuelled kaftan wearers of 40 years ago still exercises a significant effect on British attitudes to this day.

The hippy movement rejected social convention and Establishment attitudes in favour of peace, love and a belief that it could change the world. To a large extent it has. Hippydom has moulded our views on everything from war, government, sex, fashion and food to alternative therapies and the environment, according to the survey, conducted among 1,000 English, Scottish and Welsh adults in March.

Almost half those questioned agreed with the hippy rallying cry “Make love, not war”, and slightly under half were opposed to nuclear weapons. One in ten had taken part in an anti-war demonstration and just over a third thought that there was never any excuse for war.

Nearly half the British people believed in questioning authority, and a similar proportion thought that there were too many rules in society. Almost a third of those surveyed disagreed with party politics; hippies largely opposed the party system, preferring to focus on single issues such as the environment.

What has caught on most of all is the idea of saving the planet, with 82 per cent of those questioned saying that they believed in the cause. Almost 50 per cent said that they would consider trying to produce all their own food; 26 per cent said that they would build their home from recycled materials; and 43 per cent said that they would live solely with alternative energy sources.

The hippy philosophy of free love has also become to some extent a mainstream notion, with two thirds of those questioned agreeing with sex before marriage, and one in ten saying that they would have multiple sexual partners.

Hippies popularised recreational drugs, a habit that now exercises an unfortunately firm grip on the young. More than 30 per cent of those surveyed said that they had taken marijuana, and 8 per cent LSD.

Forty-three per cent said that they were open to the idea of meditation and 25 per cent believed in astrology. Even hippy fashion has left its mark, with a fifth of the men questioned saying that they would wear their hair long. Nearly half of all those surveyed said that they enjoyed going barefoot.

What has stayed in the collective mind as much as anything is the sound of the Sixties. Not everyone can recall the lesser hits of Jefferson Airplane or Cream, but 84 per cent were able to hum or recite part of Yellow Submarine; 79 per cent knew Puff the Magic Dragon, 65 per cent California Dreamin’ and 58 per cent San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair), the anthem to the Summer of Love.

Katherine Walker, editor-in-chief of Reader’s Digest, said: “There was much more to the Summer of Love than taking drugs, sleeping around and shirking responsibility. Our poll shows that the hippy era produced many innovative, enduring ideals that British people of all ages have come to live by. In some ways they really did change the world.”

1967 in brief

— Harold Wilson applies for British EEC membership, but Charles de Gaulle gives a “ non”; Lyndon B. Johnson approves a US offensive on the Mekong Delta in Vietnam

— In the Heat of the Night wins the Oscar for Best Film

— Dr Christiaan Barnard performs the world’s first heart transplant operation in South Africa

— Israel wins Six-Day War

— Domestic microwave ovens go on sale

— Biafra secedes from Nigeria to provoke a bloody civil war; right-wing Greek army colonels depose King Constantine II

— The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band outsells other popular albums including the Rolling Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request

— TV audiences tune in to The Saint with Roger Moore and The Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan

— Sandie Shaw wins the Eurovision Song Contest for Britain with Puppet on a String

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