What do you think?
Rate this book
Ruffian on the Stair
In six days, Silas Mudd will celebrate his 100th birthday. He is alarmingly healthy and tough as old boots—which is more than can be said of his son Will. “Not sure he’ll make old bones,” Silas confides loudly to Coral, his daughter-in-law. But there is no doubt that Silas’s son and his two daughters will be at the party. Best outfits and good form are what they think Silas wants served up, and they dare not disappoint him. This is not a family that reveals disturbing thoughts or truths. But Silas is the only one left who knows exactly what is shoring up his family. So he sits, waiting and thinking, wondering what would happen if he were to tell.
- GenresFiction
240 pages, Paperback
First published September 6, 2001
About the author
Nina Bawden
64 books94 followersNina Bawden was a popular British novelist and children's writer. Her mother was a teacher and her father a marine.
When World War II broke out she spent the school holidays at a farm in Shropshire along with her mother and her brothers, but lived in Aberdare, Wales, during term time.
Bawden attended Somerville College, Oxford, where she gained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
Her novels include Carrie's War, Peppermint Pig, and The Witch's Daughter.
A number of her works have been dramatised by BBC Children's television, and many have been translated into various languages. In 2002 she was badly injured in the Potters Bar rail crash, and her husband Austen Kark was killed.
Bawden passed away at her home in London on 22 August 2012.
When World War II broke out she spent the school holidays at a farm in Shropshire along with her mother and her brothers, but lived in Aberdare, Wales, during term time.
Bawden attended Somerville College, Oxford, where she gained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
Her novels include Carrie's War, Peppermint Pig, and The Witch's Daughter.
A number of her works have been dramatised by BBC Children's television, and many have been translated into various languages. In 2002 she was badly injured in the Potters Bar rail crash, and her husband Austen Kark was killed.
Bawden passed away at her home in London on 22 August 2012.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 24, 2014
here are those books which it is really hard to convey just how good they are in a mere review, this is one such novel, which all goes to show, books should just be read to be appreciated. Ruffian on the Stair was Nina Bawden’s last novel published in 2001 four years before her book Dear Austen, the letter she wrote to her husband Austen Kark who was killed in the Potter’s Bar rail crash in 2002, when Nina Bawden was badly injured. If you are wondering about the title, as I was, this verse is quoted in the front of the novel.
“Madam Life’s a piece in bloom
Death goes digging everywhere
She’s the tenant of the room
He’s the ruffian on the stair
W.E Henley
Silas Mudd just days away from his one hundredth birthday, is something of a wily old sod, his deafness coming and going as it suits him. As the preparations for a special family lunch to celebrate, get underway Silas come to reflect on his long life. He remembers those who he has lost, his two wives, the aunt who brought him up following his mother’s tragic death, his father and his beloved sister. It is the tragedy of such longevity that everyone, one knew when young, and so many people one has loved, are already long gone, Bawden was only in her mid-seventies when she wrote this novel, and yet she seems to have understood the sadness and loneliness of such old age keenly.
Silas’s grown up children and step children are due to attend the lunch, but still have their own concerns to attend to in the midst of worries over gifts and seating plans. Silas’s son Will, many years younger than his two elder sisters, neither of whom live in London, is recovering from Pneumonia in hospital, while his wife Coral, an actress is preparing to play Gertrude in Brighton. On the way home from visiting her husband in hospital, Coral undergoes a frightening experience, that she later feels unable to talk about to anyone, and is constantly berating herself for – her secrecy leading Will to allow his imagination to run wild. Silas’s eldest daughter Hannah lives in Yorkshire with her husband Julius, and lots of sheep, her daughter one of the family not invited to the lunch. Hannah’s not sure at all how Silas would react to his thirty-something granddaughter being unmarried and pregnant anyway. However what bothers Hannah even more is just what is it that Silas’s step-daughter Clare is planning? Clare the daughter of Silas’s second wife Bella is a particular favourite of Silas’s much to the irritation of other family members. Alice, the sister that comes between Hannah and Will is a world famous science Professor, travelling from Australia for the lunch having been attending a conference, she’s due to stay with Will and Coral.
“Since Bella’s death, Silas has become a traveller in time. He sits with a book on his lap – he doesn’t want to be seen as an old man, dreaming – and allows his mind to run free. He sees- feels –his past life as a vast, echoing tunnel, or underground cave. He journeys through it and around it, mining the seam of his personal history; hidden or half-forgotten events barely glimpsed out of the corner of an eye, a brief flash of light in the darkness, other dwelt upon, constantly revisited, permanently lit. He can traverse a decade in a matter of seconds or linger for days on a single moment, in a particular room.”
While Silas’s children and step children worry over birthday celebrations and family politics, Silas spends most of his time, where he now feels most comfortable – the past. Re-living his childhood, and then his love affair with his first wife the socially superior Effie, their marriage and the years with their two daughters before the Second World War disrupted everything, and Effie’s late pre-menopausal baby Will came along – which would lead eventually to her early death. Silas remembers his joys, his disappointments and the secrets he kept.
Nina Bawden is brilliant at exploring the intricacies of family life, and in The Ruffian on the Stair, she also explores, the poignancies, and pitfalls of extreme old age, injecting a little humour – and an awful lot of sympathetic understanding along the way. This novel was a real surprise, I had expected to really like it, but hadn’t expected it turn out a five star read which kept me up till 1.30 to finish.
“Madam Life’s a piece in bloom
Death goes digging everywhere
She’s the tenant of the room
He’s the ruffian on the stair
W.E Henley
Silas Mudd just days away from his one hundredth birthday, is something of a wily old sod, his deafness coming and going as it suits him. As the preparations for a special family lunch to celebrate, get underway Silas come to reflect on his long life. He remembers those who he has lost, his two wives, the aunt who brought him up following his mother’s tragic death, his father and his beloved sister. It is the tragedy of such longevity that everyone, one knew when young, and so many people one has loved, are already long gone, Bawden was only in her mid-seventies when she wrote this novel, and yet she seems to have understood the sadness and loneliness of such old age keenly.
Silas’s grown up children and step children are due to attend the lunch, but still have their own concerns to attend to in the midst of worries over gifts and seating plans. Silas’s son Will, many years younger than his two elder sisters, neither of whom live in London, is recovering from Pneumonia in hospital, while his wife Coral, an actress is preparing to play Gertrude in Brighton. On the way home from visiting her husband in hospital, Coral undergoes a frightening experience, that she later feels unable to talk about to anyone, and is constantly berating herself for – her secrecy leading Will to allow his imagination to run wild. Silas’s eldest daughter Hannah lives in Yorkshire with her husband Julius, and lots of sheep, her daughter one of the family not invited to the lunch. Hannah’s not sure at all how Silas would react to his thirty-something granddaughter being unmarried and pregnant anyway. However what bothers Hannah even more is just what is it that Silas’s step-daughter Clare is planning? Clare the daughter of Silas’s second wife Bella is a particular favourite of Silas’s much to the irritation of other family members. Alice, the sister that comes between Hannah and Will is a world famous science Professor, travelling from Australia for the lunch having been attending a conference, she’s due to stay with Will and Coral.
“Since Bella’s death, Silas has become a traveller in time. He sits with a book on his lap – he doesn’t want to be seen as an old man, dreaming – and allows his mind to run free. He sees- feels –his past life as a vast, echoing tunnel, or underground cave. He journeys through it and around it, mining the seam of his personal history; hidden or half-forgotten events barely glimpsed out of the corner of an eye, a brief flash of light in the darkness, other dwelt upon, constantly revisited, permanently lit. He can traverse a decade in a matter of seconds or linger for days on a single moment, in a particular room.”
While Silas’s children and step children worry over birthday celebrations and family politics, Silas spends most of his time, where he now feels most comfortable – the past. Re-living his childhood, and then his love affair with his first wife the socially superior Effie, their marriage and the years with their two daughters before the Second World War disrupted everything, and Effie’s late pre-menopausal baby Will came along – which would lead eventually to her early death. Silas remembers his joys, his disappointments and the secrets he kept.
Nina Bawden is brilliant at exploring the intricacies of family life, and in The Ruffian on the Stair, she also explores, the poignancies, and pitfalls of extreme old age, injecting a little humour – and an awful lot of sympathetic understanding along the way. This novel was a real surprise, I had expected to really like it, but hadn’t expected it turn out a five star read which kept me up till 1.30 to finish.
March 26, 2015
I was a huge Nina Bawden fan as a child with Carrie’s War and a Peppermint Pig being much read and treasured books on my shelf but despite my huge admiration for her storytelling abilities I hadn’t read any of her work for adults.
Why, well this book introduces us to Silas Mudd, a man six days short of his one hundredth birthday, a celebration that as is often the case with these momentous occasions, has become somewhat mired in who should have pride of place next to Silas and which generations should be invited accompanied the somewhat ruminative dwellings of his offspring about how well they know the man at all.
Silas meanwhile is keen to keep up appearances, spreading his book across his knee as behind his unseeing eyes he disappears into his past on a journey where he takes the blame for some actions while neatly failing to take any responsibility at all for others. And what a journey it is, right back to his childhood with his adored elder sister through his first job and his courtship of his first wife Effie. Silas and Effie had some good times until the war came along causing a sequence of events that had consequences right up until the present day. After Effie’s untimely death Silas married again to a younger woman, Bella whose children are the cause of the upset to his own offspring, Hannah, Alice and younger son Will.
I was pleased to see that Nina Bawden, even in her last work of fiction hadn’t lost her keen eye for detail, the gentle and observational humour that she injects into what could be a melancholy tale, lifts this to an incredibly readable book. I wanted to know the details of Silas Mudd’s life, being able to make my own assumptions about the life from the other side of the relationships he describes. How wounding to be Hannah who Silas had once remarked ‘Going without food for once won’t do you much harm. In fact quite the opposite, I would say.’ how galling that Will had to tell his sisters of his father’s mistakes, whilst also watching the seemingly over-caring Clare, daughter of Bella believe that she was ingratiating herself with Silas and with a wry smile noting his reaction both outward and inward to her flattery.
This is a gentle and incredibly perceptive book, told in an unlinear fashion as befitting its protagonist published by Virago that has reignited my admiration of this talented author. Expect to see some more reviews of her books for adults in the near future.
Why, well this book introduces us to Silas Mudd, a man six days short of his one hundredth birthday, a celebration that as is often the case with these momentous occasions, has become somewhat mired in who should have pride of place next to Silas and which generations should be invited accompanied the somewhat ruminative dwellings of his offspring about how well they know the man at all.
Silas meanwhile is keen to keep up appearances, spreading his book across his knee as behind his unseeing eyes he disappears into his past on a journey where he takes the blame for some actions while neatly failing to take any responsibility at all for others. And what a journey it is, right back to his childhood with his adored elder sister through his first job and his courtship of his first wife Effie. Silas and Effie had some good times until the war came along causing a sequence of events that had consequences right up until the present day. After Effie’s untimely death Silas married again to a younger woman, Bella whose children are the cause of the upset to his own offspring, Hannah, Alice and younger son Will.
I was pleased to see that Nina Bawden, even in her last work of fiction hadn’t lost her keen eye for detail, the gentle and observational humour that she injects into what could be a melancholy tale, lifts this to an incredibly readable book. I wanted to know the details of Silas Mudd’s life, being able to make my own assumptions about the life from the other side of the relationships he describes. How wounding to be Hannah who Silas had once remarked ‘Going without food for once won’t do you much harm. In fact quite the opposite, I would say.’ how galling that Will had to tell his sisters of his father’s mistakes, whilst also watching the seemingly over-caring Clare, daughter of Bella believe that she was ingratiating herself with Silas and with a wry smile noting his reaction both outward and inward to her flattery.
This is a gentle and incredibly perceptive book, told in an unlinear fashion as befitting its protagonist published by Virago that has reignited my admiration of this talented author. Expect to see some more reviews of her books for adults in the near future.
December 24, 2017
This is a gentle tale of the wonderings of an elderly man which leaves too many threads untied. The narrative revolves around the immediate family - beloved son, unfavoured daughters - as they reflect on their relationship with him in the run up to his 100th birthday. The plot is unfolded in a series of flashbacks which inevitably reveal a family secret. It's a fairly unoriginal plot which does eventually gather interest but then fails to conclude.
The portrait of the father's life is frustrating in several ways. It lacks the balancing children's views, which might have brought more tension but more to the point, surely already knew about the family secret? Then the unresolved plotlines... Coral's ruffian? The stroke leaves him unaffected? The device of deafness veers to be convenient for the plot. I can't decide if author left out the final chapter or just ran out of inspiration.
The portrait of the father's life is frustrating in several ways. It lacks the balancing children's views, which might have brought more tension but more to the point, surely already knew about the family secret? Then the unresolved plotlines... Coral's ruffian? The stroke leaves him unaffected? The device of deafness veers to be convenient for the plot. I can't decide if author left out the final chapter or just ran out of inspiration.
September 4, 2018
Silas Mudd is turning 100, and we watch him look back on his life, relationships, fatherhood, etc. with which he has made somewhat of a muddle. British, a Virago imprint- this was enjoyable to me, but probably not for everyone. Thank you to Kat for the free book!
March 1, 2009
Picked this up by chance at the library and absolutely adored it. Beautifully written and wonderful characters. The book turns out to be hard to find so do give it a read if you come across it.
April 1, 2012
Funny and thought provoking. I enjoyed reading this!
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews