to old Polish music, and he eventually adapted this score for the concert work Concerto in modo antico. In 1952 Panufnik composed a Heroic Overture, based on an idea he had conceived in 1939 inspired by the struggle of Poland against Nazi oppression. He submitted this work (without divulging its true meaning) for the 1952 pre-Olympic music competition in Helsinki, and it won. However, at home this overture was also branded "formalist". In the spring of 1953, Panufnik was sent, with the Chamber Orchestra of the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, on a tour of China, where he met prime-minister Zhou Enlai and, briefly, Chairman Mao. In his first days there, he heard devastating news that his adored Oonagh had been drowned while Scarlett had an epileptic attack while she was bathing her. After returning to Warsaw he was asked to write a letter that the government could send to western musicians, ostensibly from Panufnik, to sound them out as to their sympathies with the Polish "Peace Movement". Panufnik described this as effectively an order to spy for Moscow, and as the last in a "succession of final straws". Thus in 1954 Panufnik no longer felt able to reconcile his patriotic desire to remain a Polish composer in Poland with his contempt for the musical and political demands of the government. He decided to migrate to Britain to highlight the conditions in which Polish composers were being forced to work. Bernard Jacobson described the events of Panufnik's escape from Poland as being straight out of a John le Carré novel. "Scarlett", whose father lived in Britain, easily obtained permission to travel to London, and while she was there she covertly asked Polish émigré friends to help. They contrived a conducting engagement in Switzerland as cover. Panufnik was anxious not to arouse suspicion by appearing too eager to accept the invitation when it arrived. While Panufnik was fulfilling the engagement, the Polish Legation in Switzerland became aware of his impending escape, and urgently recalled him to the Polish Embassy. Panufnik gave members of the Secret Police who were following him the slip during an alarming night-time taxi-ride through Zürich. He eventually boarded a flight for London, and was granted political asylum on arrival. His defection made international headlines. The Polish government branded him a traitor, immediately suppressing his music and any record of his conducting achievements, publicising numerous calumnies against him. Although a