VIDEO: Royal Mail at full tilt at Bradford sorting office to spread Christmas cheer

As December 25 approaches, the number of items dealt with by the Bradford North Delivery Office jumps from 160,000 a day to 250,000, and every last piece, down to the smallest of cards, gets delivered.

"You have to look after it, that one letter addressed to Mr Smith might be the only contact he gets," said Mick Duffy, Delivery Sector Manager for Bradford and Harrogate.

This week is the busiest of the year for the 300 staff who work in two sorting offices at the Inkersley Road site, covering the north Bradford and Valley areas.

Across the country 19,000 extra staff have been taken on by Royal Mail over Christmas, but at Bradford North the increased workload has been picked-up by offering overtime, an advantage as staff's local knowledge is key to helping the "military precision" operation.

"And Christmas is the time when people really want to see their own postman walking up the path," Mr Duffy said.

Delivery office manager Ralph Allan added: "It's amazing how many people know their postman. There's been days when somebody's been off ill and I've had customers ringing up and asking if they're okay."

On average people will send 17 Christmas cards each, said Mr Duffy, meaning an obvious increase in work.

"During Christmas the amount of post we have to sort manually goes up. Christmas cards come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, you get some really tiny ones now, which have to be sorted by hand.

"It's busy, but it's our bread and butter," said Mr Duffy.

But despite the extra pressure, there is no panic or staff daunted by the countless sacks, boxes and cages of mail.

Everyone knows what they're meant to be doing and where they should be. Christmas tunes are playing and there's even a Santa hat among the spread of postmen.

"It's a really good atmosphere. There's a lot of camaraderie," said Mr Duffy, who started working with Royal Mail as a part-time postman 28 years ago.

"It's one of the times of year when people really pull together. It's got a really positive vibe."

The office runs 24-hours a day, but hustles the most from 7am until 9am when post is sorted for delivery .

The 150 van fleet will start by taking out large packages - to catch people before they go to work - then return, reload and be sent out again with smaller parcels and post.

All post is initially sent to Leeds, where it is sorted and sent to relevant delivery offices across the country.

In Bradford, machines start whirring at 9pm to sort mail by area into stacks, whizzing through 40,000 letters an hour.

Christmas posting alert! Tomorrow is the last recommended day to send Christmas mail by First Class! #Spreadtheword pic.twitter.com/emWipjY3Ck

— Royal Mail News (@royalmailnews) December 19, 2014

Early the next morning, postmen start getting mail ready to be delivered. For each round there is a curved table with a wall of slots - one for every house on a street.

Meanwhile rows of staff manually sift through the 15 per cent of letters which cannot be read by the machines because of their size, colour, handwriting or lack of address.

Delivery manager Charlie Hogan has worked for Royal Mail for 24 years.

"I love Christmas! It's fantastic. Everybody's happy, everybody's doing the right thing and working together. We're working a bit harder than we normally do, but we know why - to keep customers happy.

"We're customers too and we've ordered parcels and want all our cards delivered on time," he said.

"It's a good job if you do it for the right reasons. It's like the old days - a job for life."

Postman Brett Woodend said the number of Christmas cards reduced each year, but that was off-set by more people shopping online and the company was expanding towards the parcel market.

"I love this job. It's crazy at this time of year. A lot of the guys have been here for a long time. They'll say they came here for two weeks and that was 30-odd years ago," he said.

So far this winter the weather has been kind to postmen, but when snow and ice arrives bosses sometimes have no choice but to cancel rounds.

"It's so unpredictable. Roads are gritted, but not everybody grits their paths and if someone goes out and injures themselves, well you can't have that", said Mr Duffy.

The postman's other nemesis is the loose dog.

"People make light of it, but dogs are a real problem if they're out, it can be really serious. That tends to be a seasonal thing," Mr Duffy said.

"Dogs and snow are the main things, you don't tend to get to the two together though - dogs don't like being out in the snow either!"

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