Confessions of a Famous Mover

Pippa Middleton, the Princess of Wales' sister, oversaw the removal of furniture by Ward Thomas' team into her stucco-fronted Chelsea townhouse in 2018, while Pirates of the Caribbean Actress Keira Knightley sat in the front of the van when she moved to North London a few years ago (she looked great, just with her sleeves rolled up and not getting in the way).

Ward Thomas says moving day reveals the innermost soul of his clients. You can tell what kind of people they are. Simon Cowell couldn't have been a nicer guy, he was fantastic with the guys. I always judge people by the way they treat the movers as a barometer and he was fantastic, a real gentleman with a good sense of humour. He adds, tellingly: He tipped them well.

He has also worked for many politicians. In July, one of his removal vans turned up outside former Conservative housing minister Michael Goves’s home at One Carlton Gardens, near Buckingham Palace, marking the end of the Conservatives’ term in office. “We’ve moved a lot of politicians, a lot of Conservatives,” he adds, listing names such as Jacob Rees-Mogg and even a former prime minister, Boris Johnson.

Not all of them are charming, however, and among those he feels least kindly towards is Matt Hancock, the former Covid-era health secretary who left his post in 2021 after breaking social distancing guidelines by kissing a colleague.

My worst is Matt Hancock. We moved him two or three times. The last time he annoyed me so much because he called at the last minute and booked the move. Under normal circumstances, you book a parking suspension with the council. We didn't have time, so we got a proper parking ticket. We paid it and sent it to him. Later it turned out that Hancock had claimed the $78 fine on his parliamentary expenses. I got a call from a journalist asking if I could comment on that. I didn't. But I feel free to do so. [do so] NOW.

Since opening his own shop in southwest London in 1985 with a $500 deposit for a delivery van, Ward Thomas now offers not only luxury chauffeured removals but also commercial and office removals and international work. He has offices in Oxford, Newbury, Bath and Bristol.

When Rowan Williams stepped down as Archbishop of Canterbury in 2012, it was Ward Thomas’s office that was called in to move him from Lambeth Palace, on the south bank of the Thames, near the Palace of Westminster. What a great guy, he said. One of his staff, who had recently arrived from Australia, and who didn’t know who Williams was, couldn’t understand how a man could have such a big house in London. [and asked him] if he had accepted bribes to live here. [Williams] seemed to say: Well, yes, it's a question of corruption for him upstairs.

Ward Thomas also handled actress Cate Blanchett's move from Brighton to Sydney, Australia in 2006. It's very different from moving across the street or from one city to another. Every item has to be packed as if it's going to be shaken around like a cement mixer, because that's what happens when these ships go through the water.

He stresses that there is no such thing as an average job (there can be huge things and thousand-pound jobs), but admits: “We have a reputation for moving the biggest jobs, because that's where we started. As well as regular removals, moving libraries, art collections and wine cellars is part and parcel of the working week, and some really bizarre requests.”

Over the years, some of his ultra-wealthy clients have made wilder requests, such as delivering a potted rainforest to a rooftop terrace or using a helicopter with a cargo net to furnish a penthouse ski chalet in Verbier, Switzerland. They’ve even hired a donkey to navigate the last stretch of some switchback roads to a client’s second home in San Gimignano, Tuscany.

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His company was tasked with moving the contents of a farmhouse in Scotland to a top-floor flat in the Barbican, including a 1930s Massey Ferguson 130 tractor that, unsurprisingly, wouldn’t fit. There was even a three-week, $170,000 job moving another client’s belongings from Zug, Switzerland, to Tromso, Norway. As a tip for the boys at the end of their internship, she offered them a helicopter ride to the Arctic Circle, he says.

A father of six, Ward Thomas now lives in Hampshire. Born in London, he grew up in Essex, the son of a businessman and a novelist mother, Evelyn Anthony. He worked briefly in the City as a junior metals dealer before deciding to set up his own business.

One of my first jobs was on the Kings Road, what I thought was a small office job turned out to be quite a big office job. I was literally on my own and had 120 boxes to carry up and down the stairs with no lift. On one of my trips I stopped two young lads walking in very smart blazers and ties as they were coming back from an interview and said, “What are you guys doing? Can you help me?” They took off their jackets, rolled up their sleeves and walked away. One of them, Charles Parry, is still with me today. He is proud that his company has one of the best staff retention rates in the removals industry. “We have high overheads. We pay our staff very, very well,” he says. “We have a recognizable brand and so it tends to define us in the marketplace, and people will come to us because that reputation is synonymous with trust.”

The craziest tasks of the working day might include moving a piece of the Berlin Wall (intended for use as an artwork) or installing a Vatican fireplace for a frame in Holland Park, west London, or moving an Antony Gormley statue or a Steinway grand piano through a window. In fact, Ward Thomas even has a separate art logistics department, which offers a special white-glove (or in this case red-glove) service and has made a name for itself delivering works for auction houses including Sotheby’s.

Ward Thomas is a keen jockey, and his son Tom is an actor in London, while his twins Catherine and Lizzie are country singers whose album is number one in the UK. They call Ward Thomas a failure of imagination and they have a song they are going to propose for the new James Bond [film] called Perfect Poison.

Such is the glamorous life of a man always on the move.