Philip Williamson

Williamson, the society's non-executive vice-chairman, who is also seeking re-election, joined the board last year after retiring from British building society Nationwide, where he was chief executive.

Tinney sat on the EBS board between December 2000 and April 2007, but failed at last year's agm in her bid for reelection, after losing the board's backing.Speaking to The Sunday Business Post, Tinney said she decided to run again this year, both for ‘‘personal vindication" and due to ‘‘unfinished business on behalf of the members".

She called for a greater degree of transparency from EBS.' ‘The board needs to accept that it owes communications to its members.It is behaving as if it owns the society," she said.

O'Shea Farren, whose nomination papers were signed by Tinney, said: ‘‘There's plenty of room on the board for new blood."

She has had a varied career, working in a corporate law firm in New York and London, as an investment banker in Dublin, and as a programme manager and advisor at the Department of Justice.

In 2000, O'Shea Farren opened a solicitor's practice.She said her track record as a campaigner qualified her for a place on the EBS board.' ‘I have a long record of campaigning for issues.

"It's an escape," says Philip Williamson, and so it is: an escape to Elizabethan England.
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The goods are mainly handmade by us or a few small firms who follow our recipes," says Philip.He was a banker until an unlikely passion for Elizabethan history and victuals led him to his current business, and nowadays he spends all his time cooking ("Such lovely aromas pervade the air"), while Josephine runs the shop.

Made without additives or preservatives, the condiments and confections are beautifully packaged with cream and burgundy labels bearing historical narratives about the ingredients, tagged with a likeness of Queen Elizabeth I, and sealed with a Tudor rose."People are particularly interested in the narratives we have researched, for example telling that in Elizabethan days mustard seed was crushed by rolling it with an iron cannonball," Philip says.
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"Our curds are very popular, particularly the lemon and the raspberry," Philip interjects my reverie.
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"I really like making the floral oils," Philip admits."After baking the herbs, I enjoy artistically positioning the coriander sticks and sage in the bottles so that their variegated colours catch the light."Then he laughs: "It's ridiculous that an ex-lending banker finds such pleasure in that!"

You'll discover uses for many of the shop's condiments and confections in The Elizabethan Times.Distributed to customers, it's a lighthearted but informative newsletter containing recipes, historic snippets, and lore.

So, would Philip, enthusiastic as he is about the era, enjoy being transported back to 16th-century England?"It would certainly appeal," he agrees.