Princess Anne, the Princess Royal, was scheduled to include Calder Stone of Caithness in a tour of the north of Scotland in January.

The tour was due to take place after we had gone to press, with her visit to Calder Stone taking place on 21 January.

The visit to the Caithness stone quarry and processing factory, where £2million has been spent to develop a tile that is being sold on the world market by International Slate Company, a huge Italian firm who are famous for their Artesia brand of slate tiles and are partners in Calder Stone of Caithness.

The other partners in the business are Caithness Slate Products, a company formed by Trevor Somny in 1999 to develop the Caithness quarry from which Calder Stone is now produced (featured in NSS in April last year as the results of the £2million investment neared completion).

Trevor Somny, who is originally from Zimbabwe, has transformed the Caithness Slate Products quarry from an antiquated roofing slate business into a highly sophisticated production facility using state of the art Donatoni and Pedrini stone processing machinery and tile line.

The investment in Calder Stone included government grants, the result being a success story of private and public partnership, which was why the Princess Royal included the business in her itinerary.