I’M agnostic – that means I’m not brave enough to be an atheist but am still allowed to mock religion. Raised as a Catholic, I think it’s St Anthony who’s holding me back from atheism. While I’ve rejected every other bit of my religious upbringing, such as confessing that I hadn’t shared my midget gems with my sister, I just can’t shake off St Anthony. For those who are not au fait with the Catholic thing, let me tell you that it appoints patron saints for everything: countries, beekeepers, computer programmers, chefs. Everything has a patron saint to whom you can pray and ask favours and guidance.

My sister suffered terribly from eczema in her childhood so was given a picture of St Rita and told to hold it against her sore skin. She recovered. Maybe it was St Rita. Maybe it was the weeks spent in Yorkhill and the careful application of high-strength topical steroid creams. Who knows?

What I do know is that, whether it’s silly, cruel, or kindly meant, I hate when people try to force their religion upon others.

If you find comfort by pressing a laminated portrait of a saint to your aching tooth then that’s fine.

I prefer ibuprofen or the NHS, which is equally fine. Each to their own. I’m content to have thrown off my childhood religion and yet St Anthony still has a hold on me.

He is the patron saint of lost things. Even though I’m agnostic, I still ask him to help me find my glasses, train tickets or the remote control and, for reasons which I’m certain have nothing to do with magic or religion, the missing item is always found promptly.

Of course, you then need to put money in a charity collection box as a thank you. He ain’t free, you know.

So perhaps there is a latent religious maniac in me? Maybe I could, if things had worked out differently, have become a preacher or a missionary, trying to convert others to my cause.

My thoughts turned to religion when I watched To Walk Invisible (BBC1, Thursday) because in my teenage years I had indeed been a fanatic and tried furiously to convert everyone to my cause which wasn’t religion, but the Bronte sisters.

If someone shrugged and told me they hadn’t read Jane Eyre or found Villette hard-going,I would flutter and puff into action. You must read it! Give to another go! Don’t waste time with lesser writers! Worship them!

I even journeyed to their home in Haworth, making my literary pilgrimage, and paying respects at the Bronte graves.

I bought special editions of the novels which have fine, gilt-edged pages and they are treasured like Bibles. My God, I realised, I have a literary religion.

I wanted to convert other people and was always maddened when they dismissed them as frilly, flouncy Victorian ladies and, for no logical reason, paired them with Jane Austen. The Bronte novels are strong stuff. They are gutsy and passionate and have nothing to do with embroidery and tea! Wuthering Heights involves rape and a strangled spaniel. Jane Eyre has bigamy, madness and blindness. Villette is about the agony of unrequited love. Quit lumping them in with genteel Austen!

So I was glad that I could stop trying to be a mad, ignored missionary nutcase for a while and let To Walk Invisible tell the world the Bronte truth for me.

It dramatised the story of the three surviving Bronte sisters and their useless brother, Branwell, and it dumped all the silly clichés of Victorian dramas.

There was no flouncing or fainting or blushing. There was no soppy love story. Instead there were three sisters who were being strangled by boredom and their unfulfilled brilliance.

They had tried a bit of teaching and a bit of governessing, as lower middle-class ladies had to do if they weren’t pretty or rich enough to secure a husband (Charlotte famously despised teaching and called her pupils “dolts” who kept interrupting her daydreams with their silly questions).

After several failed ventures they gather at home and strike out on a new plan: they will each write a novel. They have to earn a living, they can’t stand teaching dolts and there’s no husband for these plain, nervous women, so what do they have to lose?

They quietly begin writing, and just as quietly get their novels published and gradually achieve literary stardom. As they do so, their brother, who could never attach himself to any project without sex, drugs or booze getting in the way, rushes towards his own destruction.

The women work their way up as he retches on the floor, spitting up blood and hiding from the debt collector.

There was nothing pretty and soothing here. Even when Charlotte first suggests that the sisters could write, Emily is furious – and quite frightening. She loathes the idea of the grubby outside world being given access to her private thoughts.

But practical, bossy Charlotte says they have talent which can’t be wasted, and they have to make their way in the world, somehow. A life of teaching the brats of the upper class would mean misery and insult. A life as novelists would offer fulfilment and freedom.

I was initially quite miffed that the story focused so heavily on Branwell, the drunken brother, but this was necessary. All the family’s money had been thrown at him, as the only son, in the hope that he would acquire a profession, but he wasted it all.

The sisters were given little but achieved everything. So the women didn’t need to be centre stage in this drama – that was the whole point.

You can shove them aside and ignore them and give all your money and effort to the strapping lad of the house and the women will slip away to the dining room, pull up a chair, and get writing.

They are an inspiration to every single person who is plain, dumpy, shy, exhausted and ignored.

They say: “Life is brutal and there’s no rainbow or handsome prince, so roll up your sleeves and just get on with it.

The script made them even more inspirational by portraying them as vivid and alive. They were kept safe from period drama stereotypes by a script peppering with swear words and casual, modern language. There’s was nothing prim and proper here, just the rough, real, brilliant Brontes.