On October 22, 1996, in St. Martins-in-the-Fields Church in central London, a congregation of some two hundred people, described the next day by the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph as "admirers," gathered to celebrate the life of the famous twentieth-century English novelist Sir Kingsley Amis. The paper described it as "a secular service: no hymns or prayers, just a lot of laughter." During the service, the late Sir Kingsley's son, the novelist Martin Amis, told the following story, recalling a conversation his father had with the Russian poet and novelist Yevgeni Yevtushenko. Yevtushenko, perhaps having mistakenly assumed all Englishmen are Christians, asked Amis if it was true that he was an atheist. "Well, yes," said Sir Kingsley, and then added, "But it's more than that. I hate him."