Verney was born in London and educated at Eton but spent part of his childhood in India where his father was serving as military secretary to the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford. After taking a third at Oxford he began architectural training but ended up working as an assistant director with both Charles Laughton and Robert Donat. His wartime career was more impressive, serving in Palestine, Syria and the Western Desert he joined the Special Boat Squadron. Taking part in their Operation Hawthorn in Sardinia in July 1943, he was captured but escaped to rejoin the Eighth Army after three months hiding in Abruzzi mountains. Following his demobilisation he began to paint, exhibiting regularly at the Leicester Galleries, the Redfern, and the New Grafton. Meanwhile he wrote and illustrated children's magazines and books, spending a brief period as editor of The Young Elizabethan in 1961–2. His best-known work is a memoir of his experiences of the Italian campaigns of the Second World War, ‘Going to the Wars’, published in 1955. He was the inventor, compiler and illustrator of the Dodo Pad diary, produced annually from 1965 to 1992. He was a founder of the Farnham Trust and served as chairman of the Gainsborough Museum at Sudbury, Suffolk.