First Appearance: Episode 630 (1986)

Last Appearance: Episode 972 (1987)

Known Family: Twin sister - Pamela Hudson; Sister - Margaret Dunne; Son (by Martin Healy) - John Palmer; Daughter (by Martin Healy) - Angela Keegan; Stepson - Wayne Hamilton; Daughter (by Gordon Hamilton) - Mary Reynolds; Husband (as Patricia) - Gordon Hamilton: divorced; Husband (as Patricia) - Stephen Morrell: divorced; Husband (as Patricia) - David Palmer (annulled after Patricia declared dead)

Key Relationships:
Flings with James Hamilton, Bjorn Nilsson and Nick Benson.

Key Storylines:
Following plastic surgery to hide injuries sustained at the hands of a thug who beat her up in Rio de Janeiro, Patricia Palmer returns to Australia under a new identity: Alison Carr. She heads straight for Charlie Bartlett's house in Sydney, where she pretends to be a friend of Patricia's who was told that Charlie would put her up. Charlie agrees, but soon becomes suspicious of the new arrival. It isn't long before she twigs Alison's true identity. Alison swears her to secrecy. She begins to start trying to clear Patricia's name of the murder of Luke Carlyle - but when Luke's father, Roger, tricks her into leaving a fingerprint on a glass, he declares triumphantly that he has the evidence that will prove she's the murderer. To her shock, Roger himself is found dead a few days later, giving Alison a reprieve.

Alison goes into business with Gordon Hamilton's brother, James, after he turns up to claim an inheritance that should have gone to him years ago, but which went to Gordon by mistake. As he spends more time with Alison, it doesn't take long for James to dig into her past and discover that she's really Patricia. David Palmer also puts his finger on the truth after inadvertently marrying another woman, called Sarah, who he thought was Patricia after plastic surgery. Alison tries to rekindle her and David's relationship, but David decides that he's had enough, and Alison promises sadly never to bother him again.

When a young woman, Mary Reynolds, turns up claiming that Patricia is her mother, Alison outwardly pooh-poohs the idea. After Mary falls in love with Wayne Hamilton, however, and the two of them marry, Alison has to reveal the truth: that she is Mary's mother, and that Gordon is her father - and Wayne is therefore her half-brother. The marriage is annulled. It only goes ahead in the first place because Alison, rushing to stop it, is involved in a 'plane crash, after the aircraft she's in with James Hamilton runs out of fuel and crashes in a forest. As Alison and James wait to be rescued, they talk and become closer. It isn't long before James asks Alison to marry him - and she agrees!

While driving a car with Caroline Morrell in the passenger seat, Alison gets into a heated argument. She ends up taking her eyes off the road - and doesn't spot another car heading straight towards them until it's too late. The two vehicles collide, knocking Alison unconscious. When she comes round, she discovers Caroline is also unconscious - and so, to avoid the police investigation that might reveal her true identity, Alison drags Caroline across into the driver's seat and then runs away. A furious Caroline threatens revenge - as does Wayne, because it was Gordon and Barbara who were in the other car, and both are hurt seriously.

There's a shock when Alison learns that James has been killed while sorting out his business affairs up-north. He leaves her everything in his will, though, and Alison reveals this to Wayne gleefully. Meanwhile, Alison's attempts to conceal who she really is fail again, after Doug Fletcher tells her that he knows that she's Patricia. Alison throws herself at him to try to prevent him going to the police; Doug, however, just keeps telling her that he will tell the police when he feels the time is right. Events come to a head, though, after a siege at the mansion owned by Fiona Thompson: the police find Alison's fingerprints on a gun used in the siege and they match them to Patricia's. A distraught Alison is arrested.

Unfortunately for Alison, it's Wayne who comes forward with the evidence to clear her: one of the hostage-takers at the mansion, Micky Pratt, had signed a statement confirming that she had driven Jeff O'Brien to Luke's apartment on the night he was murdered; Micky had subsequently been run over and the statement had vanished - but Wayne finds it and blackmails Alison over it, forcing her to talk Susan Palmer into rekindling the faltering relationship she had with him. Alison agrees reluctantly. Wayne hands over the evidence to the police and Alison is released. She still has to appear before a magistrate on the charge of fleeing the car accident after it emerges that a witness saw her running away. She's given 100 hours' community service and a good-behaviour bond. She ends up having to help decorate a run-down building which is due to be turned into an orphanage.

Alison becomes caught-up with David again as she investigates dodgy businessman Colin Hopkins. Alison and David end up locked-up together in an industrial freezer. The time they spend waiting to be rescued gives them an opportunity to re-evaluate their relationship. They both pass out eventually from the cold, but are rescued just in time to survive. Alison is devastated when, while recovering in hospital, David tells her that he wants to give things another go with his first wife, Beryl.

It transpires that things between David and Beryl don't work out, and David heads off to travel Australia. Beryl finds herself arrested for attempting to murder Wayne - despite protesting her innocence. A short time after Beryl is remanded in jail, news emerges that there's a woman in the prison who is identical to how Alison looked when she was Patricia. The woman - Pamela Hudson - is released from prison and Alison does her best to get to know her and find out who she is - although Pamela makes it clear that she's been told a lot of bad things about Alison and really isn't interested in knowing her. Alison discovers eventually that Pamela is her twin sister, who was given away by their parents when she was young, because they couldn't cope with raising both girls. She reveals the truth to an astonished Pamela.

Feeling guilty at Pamela being given away to a poor family while she grew up and married into wealth, Patricia vows to help Pamela in any way she can. The plan backfires, though, when both women fall for the same man: Nick Benson. A vicious battle of wills follows - but to Alison's fury, it's Pamela who wins, and Nick drives off with her into the sunset. Alison has the last laugh, however, after she tracks down Pamela's 18-year-old twin children, Greg and Sarah, and brings them to Sydney to live with her: she decides to be a mother to them in the way that she wasn't to her own twin children, John and Angela.

After Alison intervenes to remove nine-year-old Tick McCarthy from Dural, where he's been staying with Wayne, Wayne threatens Alison that he's not going to rest until she's destroyed: a lifetime of hate has built up into one ultimate winner-takes-all battle. From that moment, everything begins to go wrong for Alison: Wayne manipulates events so that Charlie turns against her and throws her out of her house. He also manages to bankrupt her, leaving her having to move into a run-down motel. Greg stands by her until Wayne tells him gleefully that Pamela stayed at Charlie's for a while, but Alison had never told him. A devastated Alison tries to take revenge on Wayne by using the small amount of money she can scrape together to arrange for Wayne's car to blow-up when he turns the ignition - but even that plan goes wrong when Charlie gets into the car at the same time and a watching Alison has to reveal herself and cry to Charlie to get out of the car.

A lifetime of causing trouble for everyone else finally brings Alison to her knees - but all is not lost: a most surprising knight comes to her rescue: after everything she's put him through, David still loves Alison enough that, when he reads in a newspaper that she's been declared bankrupt, he tracks her down and comments that he thought she might need some help. A stunned Alison begins kissing him passionately, hoping that, after 25 years of turbulence with the man she's ultimately always loved, she has another chance...