Facebook and Twitter users joined Nick Robinson, Andrew Marr, George Alagiah and Frank Gardner over the weekend in toasting the first meeting of the “BBC Survivors’ Club”.
Robinson said the four were “overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity” of the comments people had made about the photo, taken at a meal to celebrate them making it through life-threatening experiences.
The Radio 4 Today host recently returned in November after having surgery and chemotherapy for lung cancer.
He apologised for his “croaky first day” said he was having voice therapy.
BBC2 presenter Marr had a stroke in 2013 that affected his movement in the left side of his body.
He returned to work only nine months later, saying he was lucky to be alive.
Alagiah is now free of stage four bowel cancer after taking more than a year off from his News at Six role so that he could undergo treatment.
He told the Telegraph on Saturday: “I realised I wouldn’t give back a single day of the previous year’s experience. I am a richer person for it.”
Gardner, the BBC’s security correspondent, was paralysed from the waist down after being shot six times by al-Qaida sympathisers in Saudi Arabia in 2004.
He had 14 operations, spent nearly a year in hospital and months of rehabilitation before he could go back to work.
Robinson revealed in a BBC blog that Gardener had suggested the Survivors’ Club to the others.
“I wasn’t sure that we would ever get round to breaking bread or supping wine,” he wrote, “but I proposed that rule one of the club should state: ‘Talking about your medical condition is strictly prohibited.’
“Any breach would be punishable by picking up the bill.”
He added: “I’m afraid to say that we all breached rule one. However, no one did so to complain about what they’d gone through – what would be the point when others had gone through so much worse?
“No one dwelt on what they could no longer do. There was, instead, good news to be shared about small steps in the recovery process, or of the absurdities and indignities that are faced daily by people who are unwell or disabled.”
Robinson revealed an anecdote that cheered the quartet: “A fellow broadcaster – no names I’m afraid – was asked by his doctor whether it was difficult to speak on TV while a producer said something completely different in your ear.”
“The inquiry came in the middle of an uncomfortable and intimate examination. The answer: ‘It’s not nearly as difficult as talking to you when you’ve got your hand up my….’”
He continued: “Most of the time we did what four BBC employees gathered together always do – gossiped and bitched about our colleagues and bosses.”
For critics of the BBC concerned that the four were celebrating on expenses, Robinson concludes: “Let me reassure you that no licence fees were spent that lunchtime.
“Since we had all broken rule one, we split the bill.”
