The following article contains spoilers from an episode of Emmerdale that hasn’t aired on ITV1 yet, but can be viewed on ITVX.

Mary Goskirk (Louise Jameson) was taking care of the Woolpack bar in Monday (September 22)’s Emmerdale, and as she was dressed in her chef’s whites she was also presumably doing kitchen duties as well. And all this while using a walking stick. But what had happened?

In the episode she handed Tracy Shankley (Amy Walsh) a glass of wine and Tracy asked her if she’d had a fall.

‘No,’ Mary joked. ‘Did it bungee jumping!’

The line was presumably inserted into the script to explain the fact that Mary – a character who is usually very fit and healthy – is currently using the walking stick after Louise Jameson suffered an accident back in May this year.

She posted on X that she’d taken the ‘break a leg’ advice to ‘its extreme.’

There were no other details about what happened, but the actress did credit Leeds General Infirmary for looking after her the previous week. ‘In the meantime I lie here in my splint,’ she said.

The accident didn’t only impact Louise’s Emmerdale scenes. She also had to postpone the Harrogate and Leeds dates of her one-woman show, Shakespeare’s Mistress. In the show she performs her favourite choices from Shakespeare’s works, as well as talking about her very extensive career as an actress. The postponed dates have now been rescheduled for October and December.

Louise is a classically trained theatre actress, and she’s also a TV legend. She appeared in Doctor Who in the 1970s and is still part of the Doctor Who universe now, voicing her character Leela for podcasts. She also played Rosa Di Marco for 239 episodes of EastEnders as well as numerous other TV credits.

As well as this she is firmly a part of Emmerdale history, having played the show’s very first murder victim, Sharon Crossthwaite, back in 1973 when it was still Emmerdale Farm.

Her performance as Mary Goskirk has won her a huge fan following since her first appearance in 2022. The mother of Rhona Goskirk (Zoe Henry), Mary arrived in the village not long before Marlon Dingle (Mark Charnock) had a stroke, so Mary stayed to help the family.

It wasn’t long before, in a conversation with Kim Tate (Claire King), Mary revealed that she’s gay, but had suppressed her sexuality during her marriage to Rhona’s father. Mary’s coming out story was described as a ‘vital one to tell’ by Emmerdale bosses. ‘Coming out in later life is something rarely portrayed on television,’ producer Kate Brooks said at the time.

Since then, several of Mary’s storylines have explored her quest for love, which so far has led to heartbreak for her. A woman she was in love with turned out to be a fraudster and broke Mary’s heart and shattered her confidence for a while.