Matt Wilson (Home and Away)

Matt Wilson
Home and Away character
Portrayed by	Greg Benson
Introduced by	Alan Bateman (1988) Julie McGauran (2002)
Duration	1988-1991, 2002
First appearance	17 January 1988
Last appearance	29 May 2002
Classification	Former; regular
Book appearances	The Matt Wilson Story
Profile
Occupation	Lifeguard, waiter
Family Wife Tracey Wilson Brothers Shane Wilson Uncles Rex Wilson

Matthew "Matt" Wilson is a fictional character in the Australian soap opera Home and Away, portrayed by Greg Benson. He appeared in the pilot with one line of dialogue, credited as "Surfer", but the decision was taken to make him a recurring character, with him eventually being added to the show's title sequence.He disappeared from the show after 1991 without any explanation but returned for a guest stint in 2002.

Fictional history

Matt was first seen when Carly Morris, Lynn Davenport and Sally Keating were exploring Summer Bay, with Carly in particular being immediately taken by him. In order to get his attention, Carly followed Bobby Simpson's advice and pretended to drown, only to nearly end up drowning for real. Matt was in Carly's year at school and it was partly because she was trying to impress him that Carly felt embarrassed that her foster father Tom Fletcher was working with the road gang, unaware Matt's father was a garbage collector.

Matt and Carly were cast as the leads in the school play, an experience that Carly, who had been raped not long before, found uncomfortable. Matt had to leave Summer Bay when his family moved away but returned a few months later to take Carly to the school formal.The pair moved to the city together but a few weeks later Matt returned to town and told Carly's foster brother Steven Matheson that Carly had moved out of their flat and was hanging around with a bad crowd and drinking.

Matt tried to support Carly when she tried to kick her alcohol addiction but no longer had feelings for her. He hung around with Roo Stewart to avoid her and then dated former school bad girl Alison Patterson, even though he didn't like her. When Alison was responsible for revealing that Morag Bellingham was Bobby's mother, Matt broke up with her to show her what it was like to be treated badly. He dated Carly for a while, thinking her family were going to move to London and the relationship would end naturally, but when she offered to stay in the Bay with him he finally ended things.

Matt took a job working for Bobby and Ailsa at the new Diner. When Celia Stewart tried to set up a counselling service in the back room, Matt joined Steven and Dodge in playing tricks on her by pretending he was in love with an older woman and describing Celia herself. He later applied for a job as a life saver and found himself in competition with Adam Cameron. There was some ill-feeling when Matt got the job but he and Adam sorted it out and ended up sharing a flat.

Some years earlier, Matt's elder brother Shane had been shot and killed. Al Simpson, Bobby's adopted father, returned to town and tried to blackmail Don Fisher by claiming he was the killer. Instead Don, convinced of his guilt, turned himself in but Matt and Bobby refused to believe it and managed to expose Al as the real murderer.

Matt and Adam began renting the beach house and invited Marilyn Chambers to move in with them. Matt's stay at the house was beset by problems, including crooked landlord Ernie Jacobs repeatedly trying to evict them and Adam and Marilyn's on-off romance, which saw them asking Matt to decide which of them had to move out. The final straw came when a botched DIY job by Adam left Matt trapped in the bathroom for hours. He moved into Grant Mitchell's flat instead.

Matt and Adam played a joke on Blake Dean when he asked to join the surf club by setting him up with a punishing training regime that left him exhausted until Grant set him straight. He and Steven were later responsible for working out that Grant's sister Kim was a drug addict. Matt was shocked when an old girlfriend came to town and turned out to be terminally ill and ended up spending her last weeks with her.

Matt made his last appearance in the penultimate episode of 1991, last seen walking into a cupboard. He is generally assumed to have left town soon afterwards. He returned in 2002 for Summer Bay's sesquecentenary celebrations. Even though they were both now married to other people, he was Carly's date for the celebratory boat cruise. When the boat capsised, they were quickly rescued and Matt joined the hunt for the missing passengers and crew. He was part of the team that found Sally, Blake and Sophie but had to return home before the search was completed.

Novels

Matt was the main category in The Matt Wilson Story, one of a series of tie-in novels published in 1989 chronicling the characters' lives prior to the series.