Stephen and Irem in my flat in Bournemouth 1996

Stephen helped me when I had sold out of the first edition of my book An ABC of NLP and was considering printing a further 1000 copies, which is why this page is accessible from both the Synchronicity and the Influences sections.

I had bought a flat in a pleasant part of Bournemouth, two minutes walk from Branksome Chine beach, and was spending much of my time there, mainly writing.  I had also found a group of people that I could resonate with, they were the Dorset Association of Complementary Practitioners and they permitted me to join under my hat of Attitudinal Healing.

On one occasion I had mentioned the fact that I had written a book on neuro-linguistic programming and someone said: "You should meet Stephen Bray.  That's something he's into."  And, by another of those coincidences, he happened to be presenting a talk at the next one of our monthly gatherings, after which I spoke to him and gave him a copy of my book.

We met subsequently and, in the course of my discussing the need for a reprint, he suggested that so much had developed in the field since I had published the first edition, that it would be sensible to think about revising and updating it.  I then raised the possibility that I might even expand it, if I had someone who could help me do so; particularly in the area of New Code NLP that had come on the scene.  And so it came about that the second edition of An ABC of NLP was a joint effort and Stephen was described as "having provided additional material" - actually scant acknowledgement of the amount of work he did on the book.  He also designed the remarkable book cover that was probably more instrumental than anything else in getting the book short-listed for best self-published work of the year.

Stephen also became a valued member of the editorial board of Nurturing Potential as well as a regular contributor to its pages and its book review section.  He later moved to Turkey with his Turkish wife Irem, and is living there now.  His removal made it difficult for him to maintain the same degree of involvement with the magazine, but he continues to contribute book reviews from time to time and we remain in contact.

Stephen has a website at http://pebblesfromparadise.com/