Although Neville had a reputation for being wild and stoned, he revealed in his autobiography "Hippie Hippie Shake" that he was more of a workaholic, obsessed with the magazine deadlines and his editorials, which often tried to make sense of all the competing philosophies that were exploding from the "youthquake". Neville was known as a charismatic and charming figure who had a wide circle of friends among London's intellectual and publishing elite, rock stars, socialist revolutionaries and criminals. Through the then editor of the London "Evening Standard", Charles Wintour, he became friends with the young Anna Wintour.