Most profiles I’ve written for District 0 have been about strangers. There’s a level of spontaneity in those conversations, along with a sense of anticipation, curiosity, and excitement. As much as I prepare beforehand and ask illuminating questions, ultimately, you often only scratch the surface of a person’s life. With Tom, that wasn’t the case. He’s my oldest friend. Someone I’ve known since we were boys and someone who’s played an integral role in shaping not only my understanding of true friendship, but what it means to be human. Having shared many memories, you might expect our conversation to have been much simpler and straightforward. After all, I knew the questions I wanted to ask but more so than that, I also knew the answers to a lot of them too. Therein lay the difficulty. Tom’s been through a lot. More than most. And having witnessed a lot of his pain and struggle, I wasn’t sure how many of his tears he was okay with me publicising.
Tom’s parents met in Japan. His dad’s from a working-class background in the north of England. His mum came from an old, aristocratic family that traces its lineage back to Tom’s great grandfather who was the mayor of Fujiyoshida, a town at the base of Mt. Fuji. He’d been a staunch anti-militarist and this mentality would reveal itself in Tom later in his life. Tom’s dad ended up in Japan after he served in the British Navy. In his mid-thirties, he was studying martial arts and Japanese culture at university where Tom’s mum also happened to be a student. Though it was a meeting of different worlds, the pair quickly fell in love, got married, and had two children: Tom and his older sister. When Tom was two, the family moved to England. While his father went to law school in London, the rest of the family lived in Chester, a city near the Welsh border. It was here that Tom’s younger brother Oliver was born. Looking back, Tom recalls only snippets from this period: the smell of grass, the local lollipop lady, and underneath it all, a prevailing sense of love. While he may have been too young to understand how stressful a time it was for his parents—his dad in law school while his mum raised three children in a city she knew nothing about—love was always there.
After five years in Chester, Tom and his family returned to Tokyo when he was seven. Tom started attending an all-boys international school where he found his place in a good group of friends but he was also shy and timid by nature—as he described it, the kind of boy who was always afraid of getting his hands dirty. Several years passed and Tom had sort of just watched them go. When he was eleven, his grades were failing but he showed little urgency to change. He admitted that a large part of this had to do with being spoiled. His comfortable middle-class upbringing in Tokyo shielded him from struggle and he rarely felt any external force demanding he make something of himself. However, for Tom’s dad, his son’s behaviour was a warning sign he needed to take heed of. He suggested boarding school in England and Tom agreed. His sister, also interested in the idea, joined as well.
At twelve, Tom moved to the Suffolk countryside a couple hours from London where he enrolled in the Royal Hospital School (RHS). A co-educational international boarding school steeped in naval traditions, Tom’s father believed it the perfect place for his eldest son and daughter to not only further their education, but develop as individuals. For the boy who never liked to get his hands dirty, RHS was an immediate shock. Not only was he back in England, he was also attending a military boarding school where military drills were common and rugby was held in esteem. He joined up and it was thanks to decisions like that and the overall difference in environment that whenever Tom returned to Tokyo in the summers, family and friends noticed his changes as much as he did himself. Nothing, however, would change him as much as what happened when he turned thirteen.
Tom still remembers the scene. He’d recently been upgraded to the RHS’s B team in rugby, which had been a huge personal achievement. He’d just finished playing a match, sweat and dirt marks stained his body and uniform as he boarded the bus back to his dorm. When he arrived he found the House Master waiting for him, and escorting Tom back to the school Chaplin’s house, it was there Tom came across his sister—tear tracks across her cheeks—along with his aunt and uncle who’d come from Wales and wore vague, tight-lipped expressions. Someone passed him a phone. On the other end, his dad’s voice strained to keep itself together as he broke the news. His mum had been suffering from a mental illness for some time now. Her condition had deteriorated to such an extent that Oliver had been caught in the crossfire of her illness and had passed away. He put the phone down. Didn’t know where to look or what to say.
From there, much was a blur and yet snippets remain crystallised in Tom’s memory. The long drive from the south of England to Wales with his sister, aunt, and uncle. A heavy silence that made breathing difficult. The English landscape flitting by out the window. On the way they stopped at a KFC and Tom told me exactly what he’d ordered, as if it’d been yesterday: a jumbo packed meal deal consisting of a chicken filet burger, two chicken tenders, and a side of gravy. Biting into the soft, pillowy bun. Chewing robotically on a chicken tender, numb to taste. Then flying back to Tokyo. On a plane with his sister, aunt, uncle, and grandparents. Still in denial, certain Oliver would be waiting for him when they arrived. Then came the reality back home—seeing Oliver’s body. Running out of the house crying and the realisation dawning on Tom that he hadn’t just lost his brother. He’d also lost his mum. Throughout it all, Tom spoke about how he never had the chance to be alone and think. While he craved solitude, he also recognised he never got the chance to mourn on his own because he was always surrounded by people who cared for him.
The effects of an event as traumatic as what Tom experienced are difficult to understand to anyone besides Tom—and even then, he’s still dealing with the mental, physical, and social repercussions to this day. Having said that, his more immediate reaction was confusion and anger. While some might run from the idea of embracing such emotions that were born out of trauma, Tom shared a different belief: those feelings shaped him into the person he is today. As he put it, they gave him a voice and a rage which would propel him forward, rippling into every aspect of his being. The once shy and timid boy turned loud and aggressive, and returning to RHS—his father thought it best to keep his son and daughter away while he handled copious court cases—Tom transformed into a different person. He believed people expected him to be angry, and in a way, he was happy to play along with the identity others prescribed for him. Arguments with teachers became commonplace and detention turned into a second home. Then again, his anger also fueled his success. His aggression became a vital asset in a sport as physical as rugby, and this willingness to put his body on the line meant that it wasn't long before he was playing for RHS’s A team. Strangely, after everything that had happened, he possessed a weird confidence. While he might’ve simply been putting up a front, there was no denying the shifts occurring in Tom’s life. However, more than anything was a thought that had taken root ever since he first heard news of Oliver's death. He was no longer living solely for himself. Tom now had to live for Oliver too.
Tom’s clothing brand A¥CE was a direct result of that promise. Starting a clothing line had been one of Oliver’s dreams and Tom made it a reality. Focusing on street wear with printed tees, Tom and a few of his friends began designing, producing, and selling A¥CE clothes. Their primary customers were RHS’ students, as well as kids from schools in the surrounding areas. Word got around quickly, thanks in part to Tom and his friends’ sheer will to put the brand on the map. This was only magnified when Tom later returned to Tokyo and used A¥CE to propel himself into conversations with people in Tokyo’s creative and nightlife communities. However, before all of that, there was an even greater transformation in Tom’s life. There was a girl.
At another of his now seemingly weekly detentions, a girl was the only other student in the room. Tom knew her. Masha. She was in the same year, from Ukraine, and ever since she’d arrived at RHS, Tom had his eyes on her. Fifteen at the time, while he’d now settled into his loud, brash personality, the quiet boy remained like an ember underneath all that anger and bravado. And in detention where Masha was the only other student in the room, he wanted to say something but he fumbled, couldn’t find the words. Then, despite all the other available chairs, Masha sat next to him. They started talking. It felt as if they’d never stop.
When Masha entered his life, Tom got the chance to experience something other than a sense of loss. Masha gave him a new beginning, the birth of love—that confusing, intense, and instinctive teenaged love. However, that wasn’t the only thing Masha offered. When she returned to her hometown of Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine, Masha invited Tom. He accepted, still unaware how profoundly the visit would alter his life. Growing up in Tokyo, one of the world’s largest and most metropolitan cities, Tom was used to the fast-paced and modern environment of Japan’s capital. Kherson was a total shock. What struck him as a teenager was the lack of paved roads apart from those in the city center. Stray dogs wandered on dirt paths everywhere, always searching for food. Then the plentiful markets, where vendors sold vegetables, meat, and animals—where people chatted while they did their shopping and life slowed its pace. Unfamiliar with anywhere like Kherson, Tom was terrified at the start, and yet within that fear sprouted an obsession to know more. Tom dove deep. He started studying Ukrainian history and learned the plight of the Ukrainian people. Meeting Masha’s family who welcomed him with open arms, Tom found in them a feeling of home which he’d otherwise thought he’d lost. Masha even had a younger brother, a boy Tom couldn’t help but feel an immediate affinity for. “Ukraine was the start of an adventure that filled a hole in my life,” Tom said. “There’s no greater distraction than some teenaged romance and a new country to explore.”
While Tom’s adventure would continue, the one he’d started with Masha ended abruptly. Tom says his anger played a role. After they split, though he still had a couple of years of school left, Tom had thoughts of returning to Tokyo. His dad was struggling with the aftermath of everything that had happened. His sister—who’d returned to Tokyo and graduated from high school graduated from RHS—had plans of studying at university in England, which would leave their father on his own. In the summer leading up to his second last school year, Tom returned to Tokyo and ended up staying. Along with enrolling in an international school, Tom started leveraging the connections he’d made with A¥CE and the various events he attended. In this process of meeting more people, he began getting involved in Tokyo’s nightlife industry. Eventually, caught between his studies and the money he was making as a club promoter, Tom had to make a choice. He opted to drop out of school, and though his father objected, he also couldn’t deny that his son—much like he’d been as a teenager—was trying to earn a living on his own.
While Tom started as a club promoter, he was later organising parties at clubs and receiving a cut for his work. From the outside, he was doing well. Tokyo’s nightlife scene had an intoxicating effect, and the more money he made and the more people knew his name, the more validated he felt. On the flip side, Tokyo’s nightlife scene could also be a black hole. Constant partying. Drinking. Staying up late. Waking up and doing it all over. At nineteen Tom started to take stock of his life. He was a high school dropout, had no desire to go to university and no credits to gain admission even if he changed his mind. Speaking to his dad, he suggested Tom complete an online diploma and take his SATs. He considered it, albeit he was never convinced. Then one evening at another club, Tom got to talking with a backpacker. Hearing the details of this guy’s travels sparked a fuse in him. What about travelling the world before I return to education? His mind was made up, and once more, it was difficult for his father, who’d also travelled extensively when he was younger, to object. After mapping out a rough plan of his travels, Tom set off.
Starting in Hakata, one of the oldest cities in Japan, Tom proceeded to Busan in Korea. From there he visited Seoul, China, Mongolia, Siberia, Russia, and numerous countries in Europe. Throughout what would end up a nine-month trip around the world without taking a single flight, Tom discovered what mattered most wasn’t the countries he visited, but the people he met along the way. In Amsterdam he befriended Henry, the director who would later become Tom’s partner in the filmmaking industry. In Suffolk he stayed with the Seller family, who’d he been good friends with in RHS. In Poland he met his friend Franek’s Japanese-speaking Polish family, and staying in their apartment for part of his trip, he found the comfort of home given that they could all speak the same language. Towards the end of his trip in Taipei he connected with Kazu, a guy who’d attended the same school as Tom in Tokyo, though someone he’d never been close with up until then. While wandering Venice he met someone who’d also lost their siblings, and halfway across the world he realised that he wasn’t alone, that there were others who could share in his pain. It was a journey of healing as much as it was exploration, and Tom says the more time passed the more his aggression faded.
Out of everyone he bonded with, none mattered more than reuniting with Masha. She was studying acting in Los Angeles at the time but the two met in her hometown of Kherson where she’d returned for holiday. Nothing stood out more than that day when they sat along the Dnipro River and talked for hours, talked as if time had lost all meaning. During their winding conversation, Tom asked Masha why she’d started acting. She told him about how when they used to be students at RHS, Tom had taken drama classes and she always thought he was great at channeling his anger and grief into his performances. He had inspired her. Then, pulling out her phone, she showed him a short film she’d acted and directed in. It was about a girl who’d lost a younger sibling. On that day in the river in Ukraine, Tom found his answer to a question that had been plaguing him ever since he left on his trip. What will I do when I get home? While he wasn’t sure whether he’d return to school as he’d promised his dad, and he had little idea of how to make money outside of the black hole of the nightlife industry, one thing was for certain: he now lived with the hope that one day him and Masha would get another a chance.
Back in Japan, Tom joined a theatre production and started acting. His father was against the idea but Tom was adamant—he’d found what he wanted to pursue and he wasn’t going back to school. Performing in a mix of English and Japanese productions, his foray into Tokyo’s acting world resulted in performances in dramas like Hand to God, where he played a disturbed teenager whose puppet starts to haunt him. While acting satisfied his artistic, emotional, and spiritual needs, it offered little financial stability. As a result, Tom slipped back into the nightlife industry, falling even deeper into the scene than before. On one end Tom had taken a leap by starting acting, and in doing so gave himself a compass point to follow forward. On the other, the boom and bass of Tokyo’s nightlife took over. Constant drinking. Waking up in the afternoon. The party that never gave him the desired release. Before long Tom started wondering what he was doing with his life again. While he loved acting, the chances of success were thin. Then again, although nightlife paid well, the toll it took on his body wasn’t a worthwhile exchange. While he admits the world taught him a lot, particularly in sharpening his people skills and improving his ability of reading someone, the more time passed the more Tom felt increasingly stuck.
One evening, working another shift at another club, Tom was speaking to a colleague. There’d been rumours that the Michael Mann-led production of a tv show called Tokyo Vice was going to start shooting but the crew still needed someone who could translate between English and Japanese. Tom jumped at the opportunity. In this manner, Tom’s willingness to work in a field he had little experience in demonstrates one irrefutable truth: that if you want to change your life, you have to take what chances come your way.
In 2019, Tom joined the set as a production assistant and proved his mettle immediately. Besides his impressive work ethic that saw him spending twelve-hour days on set before rushing to the club where he’d remain past midnight, Tom had an invaluable network of connections. All those hours he’d spent working on A¥CE, as an actor, and the countless events he’d attended both as a guest and organiser saw his role evolve from a production assistant to the unofficial human resources department for Tokyo Vice. Given that this was when Japan was on Covid lockdowns, Tom’s phone book of associates both in the mixed-Japanese and nightlife worlds propelled him into a greater standing on set. After Tokyo Vice wrapped, Tom continued working in Japan’s film industry, cutting his teeth in commercial work and freelance gigs. Through this, he saw his future. As he put it, life was looking weirdly great. And then it all came crumbling down.
In 2019, Tom’s mother had been discharged from the hospital. Afterwards, Tom’s parents moved to Hong Kong to try to rebuild a life together. They returned to Japan while Tom was getting his start in the filmmaking industry, and while he and his dad tried their best to accommodate her, the demons of her mental illness returned. Then, in 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. To witness the country that had given him so much blown apart by bombs and shot to pieces by Russian troops was unbearable. Even worse was knowing that Kherson—Masha’s hometown—had been one of the invasion’s entrypoint. Refusing to stand by, Tom attended his first protest and helped create the group Stand With Ukraine Japan. Every weekend he’d gather with other protesters where they would raise up to ¥200,000 to send to people in Ukraine. Moreover, Tom and a film crew shot video footage, documentaries, and interviews to aid in the fight for Ukraine. However, Tom didn’t want to stop there.
To better capture the plight of the Ukrainians, Tom assembled a crew and traveled to a small town in Poland called Szczecin, to interview those who’d found refuge there. Before heading, Tom reconnected with the Polish-Japanese family he’d stayed with during his travels, and though their reunion was marked by joy and laughter, it was also marred with sadness. Tom and the crew spent a few days gathering their bearings, during which he reached out to Masha. Thoughts of Masha filled his mind ever since he’d first heard the news of the invasion, and in truth, thoughts of Masha had never left since they last saw each other five years ago. Besides wanting to know whether her and her family were safe, Tom also had a proposition. They were still missing a translator who could help them talk to the refugees in Szczecin. Tom asked Masha if she would help.
When Tom finally laid eyes on Masha at Chopin Airport in Poland, a flood of memories rushed through him: that first encounter when she sat beside him in detention, his anger and its impact on their love, watching the short film she’d made about the girl who’d lost her younger sibling. Life had changed—they were both in relationships, he was working in film, she was in IT. Yet one thing that remained unchanged was that promise he’d made to himself on his travels around the world: that he hoped for another chance to be with Masha again. And there he was. Reunited after five years against the backdrop of Europe’s largest conflict in decades. This heavy love and tension hung over them during their four-day trip in Szczecin. As a way to celebrate the completion of filming Tom, Masha, and the crew ended the experience in Berlin—enjoying an Italian dinner, singing karaoke, and climbing onto a rooftop to view the city from above. When the two parted ways, many questions remained unanswered. Tom headed to Manchester where he stopped off to see some relatives, and speaking of his dilemma, they told him they always knew Masha was the one. To make matters worse, when he was getting ready to fly to Japan, he found out he’d contracted Covid. Stuck with his thoughts in quarantine, Tom pondered what to do next.
When Tom finally made it back to Japan, he broke up with his girlfriend. From there, he went back to work where he gathered enough funding for a month-long documentary shoot spanning Ukraine (it’s still in production). Called Slova, Ukrainian for “words”, the idea was to interview Ukrainians about how the war was affecting their lives. And so not long after he’d arrived back in Tokyo, Tom was on his way out once more. He asked Masha to help translate again and with that, the crew was ready for their next adventure. One of their first interviews centered on kohanya—a Ukrainian term for love that transcends space and time. Kohanya would end up serving as a central theme in the following interviews, and what struck Tom was just how much love and affection abounded in a country that was being bombed on a daily basis. The love Tom and Masha shared didn’t go unnoticed as well. He recalled one lady asking how long they’d been married for. Another told them they had the same soul. Yet despite these comments and the overwhelming sense of love that filled Ukraine, towards the end of the month, Tom came to his own epiphany.
Ever since Oliver passed, Tom had vowed to live for him as well. He’d wanted to go on as many adventures as possible, travelling to the world’s far corners and witnessing as much of its beauty as its barbarity. He wanted to feel every emotion: happiness, heartbreak, joy, pain, love, hate—every colour of the human experience painted his canvas. However, there was one feeling that had vanished from Tom’s life since that day he learned about Oliver’s passing. Peace. The truth was, Tom wasn’t one of the lucky ones. He’d never be able to spend his days in a simple, normal manner. It was as if not only was he chasing a life filled with adventure, he was captive to it. Then even when things seemed to be going right, some inexorable force would put him back in his place. Travelling to the west of Ukraine for the documentary’s end, Tom thought about how there were problems in his life that he might never be able to solve. But the fact was, he could do nothing but accept the burden he’d been forced to carry. As Tom put it, his final days in Ukraine were like the conclusion to his whole life. He’d endured horrific trauma, went on countless adventures, and at the end returned to the country that had become his safe haven. Travelling through the war-torn land with his childhood sweetheart and seeing the Ukrainian’s resilience, Tom felt some weight lift off his shoulders. He experienced a sense of indifference about the future, knowing that no matter what happened next, at least he’d made good on his promise of living for Oliver. With that, he told Masha how he felt, invited her to Japan, and left it at that.
Back in Tokyo, filming for season two of Tokyo Vice began. It was a full-circle moment—a second run on the tv show that had gotten him into the business. This time Tom was a director’s assistant under Takeshi Fukunaga, someone who became a great mentor and friend. The work went well but what mattered to Tom more was when Masha agreed to come to Japan. While it took a while to sort out her visa, in December 2022, she landed in Tokyo. They took things slow for as long as they could. First Tom introduced her to the city and his friends, and supported her with whatever she needed. Tom recalled how he’d always wanted Masha to visit since back when they were in RHS, and though it’d taken years and a war to get her over, at least they were together now. Finally, on January 10th 2023, he proposed with a 19th-century antique ring from Birmingham. She was down with a fever when he got on one knee, laying sick on the sofa watching the credits to Shark Tales roll on. Once Masha felt better they signed their marriage papers at the local city hall, promising to have a proper wedding in Mykolaiv, Ukraine once the war ended.
Several years have passed since Tom and Masha got married. Several years have passed since he talked about feeling as if he’d reached a conclusion to his life. However, life goes on, and demands you move with it. After working as a fixer on Gareth Edwards’ sci-fi feature The Creator, he caught the attention of Indochina Productions founder Nicholas Simon. The meeting led to a retainer contract, providing Tom long-term stability in an industry defined by contract-to-contract hustle. Furthermore, since joining, Tom’s efforts have cemented his position as a producer. Besides that, Indochina and his freelance work have given him the opportunity to travel around the world for work and scratch that itch for being on the move. Still, he admits that the desire for adventure lies dormant inside of him, but one thing he’s learned about life is that nothing stays calm for too long. You can be certain that when the next call for adventure comes, Tom will heed the message.
Other significant moments have marked the years since. Last year his sister gave birth to a daughter called Lyra Lilly. Welcoming his niece into the world was an emotional moment, and reminded Tom that while death takes away, life can also give back. There have continued to be tough times too. Working around his trauma remains an ongoing process, but last year Tom experienced a few bouts of anger that showed him he wasn’t dealing with his problems in the right way. He knows opening up and talking can help, but he also admits that sometimes the challenges of adulthood overtake mindfulness and self-care. To keep himself grounded, Tom turned back to a familiar discipline: rugby with the Brats Rugby Team in Tokyo.
Having known Tom for so long, I knew there was more we could’ve gone into, and yet having shed so much light on the darkness of his life already, all I wanted to know was what was next. That’s when he told me about “Fair Winds and Calm Seas”. An old naval phrase, it was offered to anyone leaving on a journey through the ocean with the hope that they had a peaceful voyage. It’s etched on Oliver’s grave. It’s also the title for a movie he plans to produce about his life one day. Fair Winds and Calm Seas. Tom’s life has been filled with anything but fair winds and calm seas. The winds have been strong, blowing in every direction and never allowing him a chance to gather his bearings. The seas have been stormy, raging black swells that tore at the ship he’d been forced to man. Yet despite all of that, Tom is proof that no matter how treacherous and painful the journey you’re on might be, if you keep pushing on, if you keep believing in a chance at happiness, at love, at life—with all its misery and glory—then one day you too may be blessed with a chance at peace. A chance to sail through fair winds and calm seas.
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