How Gavin and Stacey star Matthew Horne 'cheated death' after being clipped by train in Burton Joyce

Fans of the hit BBC show Gavin and Stacey were left disappointed earlier this week after rumours of a new Christmas special were quashed. 

US outlet Deadline reported earlier this month that filming for the first new episode in five years would take place this summer. 

Excited fans were left speculating how the supposed new episode would pan out after Nessa (Ruth Jones) proposed to Smithy (James Corden) at the end of the 2019 Christmas special. 

Read more: Your Nottingham

Sadly, fans’ hopes of a new episode have since taken a hit after co-creator Jones admitted she had nothing to announce on that front. 

Among the cast members unlikely to return to our screens this Christmas is, of course, Nottingham’s Mathew Horne, who plays Gavin. 

Horne was born in Burton Joyce, a small village about seven miles east of Nottingham, in 1978 and later played for Notts County juniors. 

In 2019, Horne was given an honorary degree from Nottingham Trent University and has previously nicknamed Nottingham ‘the Rose of the Midlands’. 

But Horne’s association with Nottingham very nearly came to a tragic end in 2018 when he was struck by a train. 

On December 20, 2018, Horne was walking back to his parents’ house from the Lord Nelson pub in Burton Joyce. 

Horne’s route back to the house took him over a level crossing on the Nottingham to Lincoln line. 

While crossing the tracks, Horne was clipped by the train. 

Miraculously, he was not injured and did not require hospital treatment. 

Explaining the incident a year later, Horne told the Guardian: “Last Christmas I was clipped by a train. 

Mum was dying so my head was elsewhere. 

“I was walking home and had to cross one of those crossings that say, “Stop, look and listen.” 

“I didn’t do any of those things, and I had my headphones in so I couldn’t even hear the train. It clipped my left elbow.”

Horne’s mother sadly died in 2019.