Josh Goldstone was meant to be coming home for Christmas.
A clean-cut kickboxing star from a middle-class family, the 21-year-old was pursuing his dream of winning a Muay Thai world championship belt in Southeast Asia.
Instead, Josh returned in a box, his remains repatriated after he was found dead on the floor of a seedy hotel room in the coastal Thai resort town of Pattaya five weeks ago.
At first, in the confusion inside Room 2412 of the Vogue Hotel just after midnight on a Wednesday in late October, the police announced that of the two young men found inside, it was a heavily tattooed Aussie fighter nicknamed ‘The Dingo’ who had died.
The Pattaya City Police also revealed the dead man’s friend, thought to be Josh, had been taken to hospital severely affected by drugs, and was possibly in a coma.
A day later they admitted they had the identities reversed. Now it’s Josh’s ‘devastated and struggling’ family preparing to farewell him at the village hall in his East Sussex home town of Etchingham, south east of London.
The Goldstones – Josh’s firefighter mum Anne, dad Adam and brother Alec, both top ice hockey players – say they are being held together by friends and relatives ‘at this unbearable time’.
And Joshua, known in Muay Thai circles as ‘Lil’ Savage’ because of his ‘killer’ elbows and lethal kicks, is being remembered as a ‘strong-spirited, kind-hearted and fearless boy’ who was only just starting out when his life was cruelly cut short on October 30.
Staff had rushed to the hotel’s top level when they ‘heard a commotion’ and found one man allegedly ‘in a state of severe intoxication’ and ‘panicking and shouting‘ because a second man was lying face up on the floor and not moving.
Josh Goldstone (centre) with Steve and Daniel Gladstone who were like a dad and brother to him, and who described him as a ‘strong spirited, kind hearted and fearless boy’ on the brink of a great career
Josh, who grew up in southern England, as a kid (right) with his brother Alec and mum Anne, would go on to excel at Muay Thai
Josh’s body on the floor of Room 2412 of the Vogue Hotel in the coastal Thai resort town of Pattaya on the morning of October 30
Thai police put out the news – along with graphic photos inside the hotel room of a body on the floor – that an Australian, ‘Mr Jayson Peter Tonkin, 27, was found lying face up, shirtless, wearing black shorts, with tattoos on his body and a waist bag‘.
‘An inspection of the room did not find any signs of a struggle, but ketamine and marijuana drugs, as well as drug paraphernalia, were found on the table. The police officers collected all evidence,’ the police statement continued.
It took a day for the Pattaya City Police to acknowledge their shocking error.
The man taken to hospital, Tonkin, was a super middleweight star from Sydney known as ‘The Dingo’, and a self-confessed former drug addict.
The police were waiting to interview him, Thai media reported, and possession or consumption of ketamine, a ‘schedule 2 drug’, carried a penalty if convicted of between one and five years in a Thai prison.
The man taken to the Bangkok morgue was Josh, and as his family learned the terrible news, it began to leak out in the world of Muay Thai.
Friends and strangers posted on Josh’s social media pages, ‘rest in peace bro’, ‘RIP man’, ‘I can’t believe this s***’ and ‘Poor kid, beyond sad’.
Some of the tributes were posted alongside a photo taken just four days before his death of Josh shirtless at a market, carrying a tray of dope plants.
Josh, left, with Aussie Jayson ‘The Dingo’ Tonkin, centre, partying at the Vogue Hotel in Pattaya just days before his death from a suspected drug overdose
Josh and his family, brother Alec, mum Anne and dad Adam, travelled widely, often on ski holidays to Europe and Canada
Josh with a tray of cannabis plants, decriminalised in Thailand, before a night out in Pattaya with Jay Tonkin
Police and hotel staff in the room where Josh died Pattaya cops found ketamine and marijuana, as well as drug paraphernalia, on the table
Josh at the beach with his mum Anne and brother Alec
Josh shares a Buddhist prayer with trainer Kru Ot, who helped him shred weight and mentally prepare for boxing bouts in Thailand
Cannabis is decriminalised in Thailand. In a video posted on the day of his death, Josh sits behind Tonkin on a bike with the tray of plants, laughing and wheeling through the streets of Pattaya at night.
The two are also pictured at the Vogue Hotel with three other men, possibly Thai kickboxers, a box of beer and a barbecue feast.
Josh’s Instagram posts over the last year show him moving between Thailand, a land with which he had forged a spiritual bond via his sport, and England. And on a family holiday to the Greek islands in June he was the picture of happiness.
A GoFundMe page to raise money needed to bring Josh’s remains home states: ‘Josh was a good, loyal friend to many, a good son and grandson, brother and family member and loved by so many.
‘Yes he had issues and liked to live his life to the fullest… his love for Muay Thai and fulfilling his dreams out in Thailand were helping him deal with them.’
Semtex Muay Thai, which operates in Tunbridge Wells, a few kilometres from Josh’s home in England, posted a photo of him at their gym, saying they had ‘lost an integral member of our Semtex family last week.
‘Josh has been a member of Semtex since he was a young teen and quickly became one of the family. He… inspired many of our younger team members. Josh was the definition of someone with a good heart.
‘He had a very successful fighting career, fighting mainly out in Thailand, taking some almighty wins.
‘And it was only just the start for him. Goodbyes hurt the most, when the story was not finished. This has taken us all by surprise and we are still coming to terms with it.’
Josh Goldstone’s life will be remembered at a funeral in his home village of Etchingham on December 14
Josh with dad Adam, a former British ice hockey player-turned-coach
Josh larking it up with another boxer, showing off their tattoos of pistols tucked into their waistbands
Josh is the youngest son of Anne and Adam Goldstone, a former British ice hockey player-turned-coach. His paternal grandfather was Alec Goldstone, the man recognised as the driving force behind London’s success in ice hockey in the 1980s before his sudden death, aged 52, in 1991 from a heart attack.
Josh’s father Adam played for several London teams, and with his brother Alec, ‘grew up on ice skates’, although it was Alec, now 24, who followed their dad into the sport.
The boys grew up in Etchingham, with the family travelling frequently overseas on holidays, visiting friends and ice hockey contacts in Canada, and skiing in Europe.
When Josh joined Semtex kickboxing as a young teen, he found a mentor in the gym’s owner, Steve Gladstone, and another older brother in Steve’s son Daniel.
In Muay Thai, he seemed to have found a pursuit which kept him out of trouble. He travelled around Thailand in shorts, with a Gucci bag slung around his bare torso, and showing off his growing collection of tattoos.
He visited temples and prayed at Buddhist shrines, and met kickboxing masters such as Samart Payakaroon – the WBC champion knocked out by Australian Jeff Fenech in Sydney in 1987, before going on to become a monk.
He travelled to the waterfalls on Koh Samui – known for being the island where Shane Warne died – and rode on an elephant.
Josh became spiritually entrenched in Thai culture and religion visited temples and prayed at Buddhist shrines. Above, Goldstone riding an elephant at the waterfalls on Koh Samui island
The Goldstones on a family skiing holiday in France, from left, dad Adam, Josh, brother Alec, mum Anne
Josh is pictured at a Thai bar last year
Josh also boxed and won in the Thai Fight League, and posted philosophical statements on Instagram seemingly about his burgeoning combat sport career, such as, ‘Everybody wants to touch the sun but not many are willing to burn their wings’, in January this year.
In February, Josh posted, ‘Happy national Muay Thai day. Thank you Muay Thai. Love you’, and added a red heart emoji.
In October, Mr Gladstone travelled with a group of his Semtex boxers to Thailand to train and and fight.
The same month, Josh was training in Hua Hin, a sleepy little Thai village just across the water but in sharp contrast to the seedier, all-night party hub of Pattaya.
Jayson Tonkin was also training in Hua Hin for his upcoming big fight against WBC Muay Thai middleweight champion Tengnueng Sitjaesairoong.
The fight would be postponed due to monsoonal rain on the day, and rescheduled for November, then abandoned altogether.
Tonkin said on Instagram after arriving back in Thailand and heading for Hua Hint: ‘I’m not really allowed to live here now. I get too lost in the madness.’
He had travelled to Thailand with his cousin Kahika Beckett, who posted on one of his Instagram pages, @Tides.Talk, about an elite fight at Hua Hin won by Josh.
In Thailand Josh met boxing legends such as Samart Payakaroon, second left, who was famously knocked out by Aussie Jeff Fenech in Sydney in 1987
The post, which shows video of a ripped Goldstone brutally defeating his opponent, noted that Josh had scored a ‘win by TKO (opponent cut 3 times)’. Jay Tonkin remarked in admiration, ‘Joshyyyy boi’.
It was on Beckett’s Tides Talk podcast earlier this year that Jay Tonkin had laid bare in astonishing detail the extent of his drug addiction, in particular to meth.
Tonkin spoke of ‘demonic’ trips on ice and ‘dark turns’ during his ten years on drugs.
Friends have since remarked that the death of Josh Goldstone in front of him has been a ‘wake-up call’.
Thai police were treating the young man’s death as a a drug overdose, and were reportedly embarrassed about their mix-up in misidentifying the deceased person as Tonkin.
No charges were laid against Tonkin and the Aussie boxer has since left Thailand and flown home to Australia.
On November 2, three days after Josh’s death, Steve Gladstone posted a sad message on Instagram: ‘As I sit waiting to board my flight back home from Bangkok, I am contemplating the hardest post I have yet made.
Known as ‘Lil’ Savage’, Josh Goldstone was forging a career in Muay Thai, with a reputation for tough fighting
On the night Goldstone died, hotel staff heard Jayson Tonkin allegedly ‘in a state of severe intoxication’ and ‘panicking and shouting ‘ because Josh was lying face up on the floor and not moving
Josh Goldstone (right) at Etchingham primary school as a kid participating in the Christmas pageant
‘As some of you that know me and my son’s team, we lost one of our own this week due to unfortunate circumstances.
‘Joshua Goldstone was like a little brother to Damien and therefore a son to me. He did things his way and lived how he wanted to.
‘He was always respectful and kind and had a good heart. You were Semtex all the way and will will be missed by us all . Rest now lil’ Savage X.’
Josh will be farewelled at Etchingham Village Hall at 1pm on December 14.
