Owner/Stories/Staff

We reached a milestone in 2017. Celebrate 40 years with us.

"It is easy to remember the first time I drove a dirt road which I now know to be Wingfield Road. In the village, it was also referred to as the Old Military Road. What I didn’t realize was that I was driving past wooden “chattle” houses whose occupants would soon become the core of an as yet non-existent business.

Certainly in my wildest dreams, as I drove past ladies sitting atop piles of boulders, “ponging” them with a cold chisel and breaking them into gravel, I would not have thought that 40 years later, the boulders and most chattle houses long gone, that I would still be driving up Wingfield Road, by now a first-class tar road.

What is a business? Is it the pictures used to advertise its presence? Or is it the product it produces? Sure, those are components and results. Really, however it is the staff. Staff who have learned a unique skill; staff who endlessly meet and greet visitors; staff who beautify the environment and make this destination so welcoming and desirable.

These staff are the same people who, following successive hurricanes, wore plastic garbage bags in heavy rain and helped with the cleanup campaign, removing debris, sweeping up leaves, bagging trash, and helping with the reestablishment of our gardens and grounds, irrespective of their jobs.

This is the same staff who, in 1995, gathered round at 1:00 am that painful Sunday morning and watched fire destroy all they had worked for. Tears streaming down their cheeks, facing an uncertain future.

These staff are what Caribelle Batik is about. They have dedicated themselves to overcome obstacles that would have seen the demise of most companies.

It is not by chance that there remain staff who were from the original intake, 40 years ago today. The majority of staff have given over 20 years of service. Caribelle staff have bought land, built homes, had children, sent them to colleges and universities, and travelled overseas.

Caribelle’s staff have participated in something beautiful, beyond the dreams of most. They have created something special, spiritual almost. They all continue to have a stake in making Caribelle Batik at Romney Manor even more memorable".