London Underground is pretty rubbish. Carriage lights flicker on and off, flashing into sight the faces of drained and disenchanted faces that look like they belong to passengers of the world’s least interesting discotheque. Fortunately, the intermittent blackouts go someway to hiding the hideous upholstery of the seats. In recent times the orange, black and yellow mish-mash of rectangles have been replaced with a far less brain melting blue and green mish-mash instead.

The trains are smelly, rickety and infuriatingly fragile. And then there are those aforementioned passengers. Those poor bastards who take to the daily grind by stepping into a giant tin can where the only guarantee is that the heating will be on during summer and the windows open in winter. Around 1.3 billion people use London Underground each year, which roughly makes 3.5 million per day. Almost half a million of which slump their way into the carriages of the Victoria Line each morning and slump right back out again at night.

There are the suited and booted city workers who live out in the sticks and are riding their second of third train of the morning; they generally do everything in their power to avoid using London Underground when it’s super busy and so are normally off the train before the rest of the country is awake and only get back on when the country is ready to sleep. Next up are the smart casual commuters. At a rough estimate they make up around 80% of London Underground populace at any one time. Not quite hipster, not quite high powered Wolf of Wall Street, but could easily be confused as either to the untrained eye. These casually smart dressed individuals can and will be reading the latest and greatest fiction book, applying large amounts of make-up and/or uncomfortably avoiding any and all eye contact with everyone around them.

Occasionally an elderly or pregnant passenger will join the journey, but whether they get a seat or not is 50/50 - another rough estimate. The remaining demographic of the London Underground commuter census can be classified into the category of ‘knuckle-walker’. Knuckle-walkers are notoriously easy to spot and can be found on any form of public transport, and at any time. Key identifiers can include a backpack or satchel occupying the only nearby chair that isn’t supporting a human backside. Then there’s music. Shit music; played through cheap, tinny speakers that somehow make what is already shit music indescribably worse. There’s the ‘I don’t need deodorant’ crew who are close relatives to the smelly food eaters; the nearby cougher’s and the spraying sneezers; the tying-too-hard couple practising PDAs and the not-trying-hard-enough parents neglecting their uncontrollable, obnoxious little brats. And, perhaps the most annoying, those particularly special knuckle walkers who haven’t yet grasped that a mobile phone removes the distance between two people, allowing for quiet conversations that everybody else doesn’t have to be a part of.

All in all: this combination of ‘passengers’, ancient machinery and fragile technology makes for a pretty horrid transport experience for all. As horrible as the experience is though, the London Underground has a mysterious and wonderful secret. Hidden within the station names are the stories that history lied about. Where the victors wrote about their glory, London Underground housed the truth. My name is Victoria, and I belong to the 100% of tube passengers who believe that they are not knuckle-walkers. I also know the secret that the Victoria Line hides, and it all starts with the following letter:

‘To my Dearest Reg, It has become apparent to me that there are many mysteries that will be long forgotten after I depart from this world. Alas, my Kingdom has stretched out her arm to the farthest corners of the Earth; my gentlemen have searched the deepest bowels and crevices of humanity, ascended the mountains and sailed the seas. It is with confidence that I can say I have read every legend and listened to every myth about the King’s and Queen’s who have stepped foot on this very ground and are now nothing more than dust. And, therefore, I have become a learned woman. Learned enough, perhaps, to have obtained the ancient pearl of wisdom that is more valuable than any science or technology that we shall ever uncover: that history is written by the victor. Thus far I have been victorious in all things and, as such, I am writing to inform you that history will not remember you, my love. For the sake of my husband, Albert, and the lineage of our monarchy, the world can never know about us, or Robbie. Know that I love you my dear. But the legacy that I will leave is more important than love. Goodbye, my love, Your Indian Empress’

Robbie, whose real name was Bobbie, was my great, great, great grandfather. And that makes me a distant blood relative of my namesake, Queen Victoria. Nobody knows that of course, to most people I’m just another lady sat on the rickety old train, being carried to just another hum drum job to pay for just another hum drum life. That’s not entirely true though, you see, while everyone else is thinking their hum drum thoughts and listening to the train clitter-clatter along the line, I’m thinking about my great, great, great, great grandmother and the piece of history that everybody forgot. The Victoria Line knows the secret though. All of the documents and reports were lost or destroyed or rewritten. But the truth will out in the end. This is the story of Queen Victoria and the diamond crown.