Mitch McColl
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| Mitch McColl | |||||
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| Portrayed by | Cameron Welsh (1999–2001, 2005), Mitchell McMahon (2000, temporary recast) |
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| First appearance | 16 July 1999 Episode 2660 |
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| Last appearance | 8 July 2005 Episode 4000 |
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| Profile | |||||
| Gender | Male | ||||
| Date of birth | 1983 | ||||
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Mitchell "Mitch" McColl is a fictional character in the Australian soap opera Home and Away. He was portrayed by Cameron Welsh and, for a brief period when Welsh was ill, Mitchell McMahon.
[edit] Fictional character biography
Mitch McColl was raised by his mother Vicky, his father having apparently walked out on them when he was young. He had a stepfather who he didn't seem to get on with. When he was in his teens, his mother died of breast cancer. His stepfather told him that it was his fault, since he had once accidentally hit Vicky in the chest with a cricket ball. Mitch ran away from home and ended up in Summer Bay. There he befriended Hayley Smith, who helped him realize his stepfather had lied to him. Mitch stood up to his stepfather and settled in the Bay, moving in with Alf and Ailsa Stewart and becoming a big brother figure to Duncan. He was also good friends with Will Smith and Edward Dunglass.
There was an instant attraction between Mitch and Hayley but it took them some time to act upon it. Instead, he briefly dated Gypsy Nash, during which time they slept together. When he and Hayley started going out, he lied to her about this and when she found out she broke up with him. Mitch didn't win her over until after he'd saved her from the attentions of her sleazy employer Brian Rodgers and comforted her when Gypsy was injured in a car accident.
Shortly after this, Mitch and Hayley came across the body of a girl (later named as Sarah Mackay) who had run away from home and drowned while sleeping in a storm drain. Mitch was deeply affected by the incident, aware that the same fate could easily have befallen him, and was determined to set up a Drop-In Centre, named after Sarah, in the Bay where runaways could be safe. He found a suitable abandoned property and managed to gain the support of his friends and the Bay's adults to shame the council into giving them permission. However, Mitch was somewhat annoyed when, once the centre was set up, it was Shelley and Gypsy who ended up running it, feeling that as he was the only one who had lived on the streets he was the only one who understood what was needed to be done. Although he eventually made his peace with them, his attitude drove a wedge between him and Hayley and she wouldn't even talk to him when her father died. Instead he struck up a close friendship with Brodie Hanson, the first person to stay at the Drop-In Centre. Although he was initially worried about her becoming dependent on him, they eventually started dating (much to the annoyance of Hayley, who had assumed they would get back together).
Shortly after Mitch had won a charity talent contest with a self-composed musical number, he was approached by Morrie Sanders, who revealed he was his uncle. His father, Mitch's grandfather, had thrown Vicky out of the house because he disapproved of her choice of husband; Morrie was away at college at the time and didn't know what had happened until he got home. Now Morrie's mother was dying and he had hired a private detective to find Vicky. He asked Mitch to come back to New Zealand with him to see her before she died. Intrigued by stories of the cousins he had never met and touched by Morrie's insistence he inherit Vicky's share of the family vineyard, Mitch agreed.
When Mitch returned to the Bay, he was clearly changed. He had been feeling out of place since Ailsa had died; indeed, things had got so bad between him and Alf that he had moved out of the Diner flat and was living with Vinnie and Gypsy at the Nash house. He decided to return to New Zealand permanently. Although he parted on good terms with Brodie(and also Alf and Duncan), she knew they wouldn't see each other again. He did, however, return to Summer Bay briefly in 2005 for Alf's 60th birthday.
