Les Dennis, Kate Thornton and Rylan Clark were among the celebrities who tweeted Carol McGiffin messages of support after she revealed her battle with cancer.

Ex-Emmerdale actress Sheree Murphy, actress Lisa Maxwell and TV presenters Gaby Roslin and Jenny Powell also wrote to the former Loose Women star, following the news she was diagnosed with a tumour in April.

She told the Sunday People newspaper she underwent a mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy to overcome it.

Carol revealed she was taken aback at the response.

The 54-year-old TV star said: “I don’t want to pretend any more. I kept it a secret because I didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for me.

“I feel it is over now and I’ve got through it. I just want to be able to go out without my hat on and for people not to be bothered. I just want my life to get back to normal.”

She said her fiance Mark Cassidy, who is 22 years younger than her, had helped shave her hair off and that he had not been “fazed” by her ordeal.

Carol McGiffin and Mark Cassidy
Carol and Mark (Eamonn and James Clarke/EMPICS Entertainment)

In her regular column for the newspaper she added it had been “nothing more than a bad dream” and praised the NHS staff at the Royal Free Hospital in London, where she said she had at one point been placed in the isolation unit next to the Ebola ward.

“I felt as if I should keep in touch with the people who cared for me but like all NHS staff they’re too busy looking after the next patient. But my gratitude knows no bounds and I’m sure they know that,” she wrote.

She told how her friend Lynda Bellingham, who died in October from colon cancer at 66, had said “f***ing hell, not you an’ all”, when she told her of her own plight.

Carol McGiffin with her Loose Women friends
Carol with her Loose Women friends including Lynda and Denise Welch (Ian West/PA)

She said: “She was a bit annoyed I hadn’t told her before but that was Lynda all over – worrying about others.”