This weekend's column: Neil Meldrum on Eddie Mitchell, Sandbanks and why kids get too much homework...

THE last time I sat down to write something about Eddie Mitchell, it was to inform him, granted with slightly more eloquence, that if he wanted to promote his football club he could do it via the medium of advertising.

That was four years ago after the Echo had been banned from attending matches at Dean Court.

Now, here we are in 2016 and Mr Mitchell is still making headlines, long after his association with AFC Bournemouth ended.

Few people divide Dorset quite like Mr Mitchell and his latest plan for the pavilion at Sandbanks has seen the battle lines drawn once again.

I first came across the Seven Developments boss when he appeared on Piers Morgan’s 2008 TV programme ‘On Sandbanks’ where he was described as the ‘George Clooney’ of the peninsula during an interview inside the infamous ‘Thunderbird’ house in Branksome Park.

Eighteen months later he was at the helm of the Cherries and we all strapped ourselves in.

What followed was a four-year relationship between sports editor, newspaper and football chairman that was as fun and bizarre as it was painfully strained at times.

It was certainly never dull and despite the telephone rows and regular tense meetings to discuss yet another story that Mr Mitchell was unhappy with, I always came away with full respect and ever-rising intrigue for a man who is as fascinating as he is bullish.

One thing that resonates from Eddie Mitchell is an unhampered drive despite his advancing years. Most men in their early sixties are contemplating sitting back with a glass of something cold, but he shows no signs of slowing down.

From a journalistic point of view, this can only be a good thing. Eddie Mitchell is a newspaper’s dream and makes great copy.

Whether our readers, particularly those who have watched characteristic areas like Lilliput, Canford Cliffs and Sandbanks become block and render postcodes, agree is another matter altogether and I suspect the vast majority do not.

But even us outsiders develop a quick and deep affinity with this most wonderful of areas to live. Eddie Mitchell was born here.

While money-making is almost certainly his primary objective (isn’t it for the vast majority of us?), Mr Mitchell only does things he thinks are right, even if he ends up being wrong.

Perhaps, in an ironic sense, that has always been his downfall, but Eddie Mitchell cannot be held responsible for books being judged by their covers.

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On Sunday, I went through the usual routine of attempting to get my eight-year-old daughter to do her homework. Yes, homework at eight years old. And, yes, the five-year-old boy also gets his fair share.

The girl’s graft included monotonous recital of the 12-times table but, more worryingly, spellings even outside of the vocabulary of her 36-year-old father.

She’s an artistic soul, so the rigidity of language and mathematics doesn’t come as easy to her as painting a picture of a dog and I can’t help but think it’s all a bit pressured for one so young.

The ethos of hard work breeding success is engrained in the Meldrum family as we were never going to pull up any trees down at Mensa HQ, but I enjoyed my early childhood free of the shackles of weekend homework, got out and about on a Saturday and Sunday and went back to school on a Monday morning refreshed and ready for another week.

No such luck for the offspring, but in these target-driven days of Ofsted ratings and the threat of special measures, I guess it should come as no surprise.