THE intrepid, inquisitive, intelligent, incisive and investigative skills of world traveller and journalist, Alan Whicker are on display on BBC iPlayer.

Take a time travel back in the archive machine and you can 'tune in turn on and drop out' to catch a 1967 Whicker’s World called The "Love Generation".

It focuses on the hippies based in San Francisco and their counter-culture life.

This was the ‘Summer of Love’ when 100,000 people, mostly young people sporting hippie fashions of dress and behaviour, converged in San Francisco's neighbourhood of Haight-Ashbury.

At the time, this was the new counter culture. It was seen as ‘far out’, 'new', 'different and unusual' and this way of living frightened many people as they struggled to come to terms with free love, music and drugs.

The hippies were seeking what they believed was a ‘better life’. They wanted to ‘experience’ different things like art and taking drugs.

Ten drug culture would at the time include marijuana, LSD and psilocybin, a drug extracted from certain mushrooms.

Whicker spend his time talking to people involved in the moment.

Those responsible for setting up this utopian community which flourished for one brief moment in the Summer of 1967 but slowly eroded and crumbled by 1970.

By watching this programme, you get a brief time capsule of information, a look back into the past.

This is a chance to see youthful optimism alive and well in 1967, the hopes of what might be stacked up against what probably will be.

The young believed in the possibility of the future, the establishment see new as a threat and understanding is at a premium. The exact opposite to the hippy way of thinking.

Whicker is a consummate professional. His career spanned almost 60 years, during which time he presented the documentary television programme Whicker's World for over 30 years.

This episode shows all the qualities which make Alan Whicker a professional reporter, a conduit through which people react and talk to, telling their side of the story or giving their point of view.

Through his skill people open up, feel relaxed talking to him and a far better story emerges.

He tells a story, words, pictures and sound all helping to create an intriguing episode.

Find it in categories and go to archive to download this programme.