Panufnik lived at Odolańska Street from April 1950 to March 1954. He was allocated this two-room flat (the height of luxury at that time) by the authorities, and lived there first with his father, whose health was deteriorating and who died in September 1951, and then, from July 1951, with his wife, Elizabeth O’Mahoney.

Only a matter of weeks after my application to the Housing Minister, I was informed that a two-room flat was at my disposal, by chance in a district of Mokotów, on land which had formerly belonged to my great-grandfather Szuster. My father was overjoyed. In a hired lorry, I transported him with his violins and the little furniture we possessed to Warsaw. Climbing to the first floor of the small, modern block, I took the key from my pocket and opened the front door, drawing back to watch the happiness in his face at the sight of his new home; but his features crumpled in anger and disgust.

'Do you call that a flat?' he asked me reproachfully. 'It’s a doll’s house!'