ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the children’s separation from their everyday routines during Serious Fun experiences. The first impressions of Barretstown had a curious unspoken mix of carnival and the sacred that seem to be a feature of all Serious Fun camps. Serious Fun is almost an oxymoron, but it has been chosen as the name for the international organisation of holiday camps for seriously ill children. Paul Newman’s original aim was to provide a kind of temporary sanctuary for children from their hospital world where they could ‘raise a little hell’. ‘Magic’ was the standard answer to queries about why Barretstown seemed so effective in such a short time, but magic could not be formally investigated as Paul Newman, the founder of Serious Fun camps, placed an embargo on all kinds of research on children during the camp. Serious Fun camps have an atmosphere that becomes apparent once the ‘real world’ has been excluded.
