When it comes to popping Christmas cards in the postbox, it’s another job ticked off the list.

We don’t tend to think about where our cards and parcels go, once collected, or the process enabling them to reach their destination.

At the Royal Mail’s Bradford North Delivery Office, more than 330 members of staff are busy getting 1.5 million items a week delivered to areas in the city centre, North and West Bradford and the Aire Valley.

A fleet of 150 vehicles takes out deliveries, which include 150,000 parcels a week. Over the build-up to Christmas, early morning parcel runs have been on the go.

“This is to make sure we meet customers before they set off for work,” says delivery office manager Ralph Allan. “We’ve also got the callers’ centre (where parcels are collected by people who have missed deliveries) open until 8pm over the Christmas period. We’ve had some positive feedback about that.”

The delivery office on Inkersley Road, Bradford, is a hive of activity, with thousands of cards, letters and parcels being sorted and taken out in sackloads to waiting vans.

The rise of online shopping has led to a significant increase in parcel deliveries, and it seems we’re becoming more savvy about our post.

“Online shopping has been massive for parcels, and there’s still a substantial amount of Christmas cards,” says postman Allan Lane, who starts his city centre delivery shift at 5.30am.

“People often ask for parcels to be delivered to their workplace, or they’ll leave a note asking us to leave it with a neighbour.”

Local knowledge among the team ensures that badly-addressed mail reaches its destination.

“Sometimes you get a very basic address – like ‘next to the house with the blue door’ – but after a while you get used to names on your rounds,” says Lisa Alderson, who delivers post to the Bingley area.

“We’ve got people who’ve been here a long time. We help each other out when it comes to working out addresses.”

Over the pre-Christmas period, staff have been on night duty sorting mail for the early runs. This aids the postmen and women whose first job, on arriving early in the morning, is to sort and ‘prep’ their mail.

When mail is collected it comes to the delivery office, then to Leeds Mail Centre for processing. Local mail returns to the Bradford sorting office and is sorted either manually or by machine.

“Items clearly postcoded, and of standard size, go through a compact sequencing machine which reads each item, gathers data and transfers the postcode onto a barcode. Each item goes through the machine three times,” says Ralph.

“Whether mail gets sorted manually or by machine depends on its size and address. Anything a bit chunky or badly addressed, without a postcode, gets sorted manually. It helps if it includes the postcode.”

Manual sorting takes place at preparation fitting stations, where mail is placed in slots divided into areas, street names and numbers. After a couple of hours sorting and prepping, the posties take to the streets, getting mail out to more than 112,000 delivery points. They take between ten and 14 sacks full of mail which click onto lightweight trollies. “The only time we use a van is for supersize parcels, or over Christmas to get early parcels out,” says Ralph.

Once parcels are sorted they’re placed in large ‘sleeves’ over trollies then wheeled out to the vans.

At Inkersley Road, there are both Bradford North and Aire Valley delivery offices. “It’s one of the biggest delivery office bases in the country,” says Ralph. “Our core work is delivering mail to the public and we have a very committed workforce.”

The public face is the callers’ centre where an eight-strong team deals with collections of parcels from an average of 500 people a day, and 700 on Saturdays.

Shelves filled with parcels of all shapes and sizes, ready to be collected for Christmas.

“There’s a nice festive atmosphere, we’ve got Christmas music on and we have a good banter with customers,” says Barbara Leddy.

“We’ve just had lovely feedback from someone who was pleased with the service last Saturday. We’ve had tins of sweets brought in as thanks from people, which is lovely.”

Queues occasionally extend outside, but staff ensure collections are dealt with quickly and efficiently. “We keep on top of it,” says Riaz Hussain. “Early parcel runs, and the 8pm late opening, have helped to ease the queues.”

Opening hours for collections from Bradford North Delivery Office, until December 24, are: Tonight and tomorrow, 6.30am-8pm; Saturday: 6.30am-5.30pm; Monday, 6.30am-8pm and Christmas Eve: 6.30am-5pm.