The warehouse in Southgate Way, Orton Southgate, Peterborough, plays a key role in handling the retailer distribution process for the Citizen.

Vans roll in and roll out, are loaded and packed with titles, part of the hidden network that gets them into shops every day, largely unnoticed in the dead of night.

While you sleep, warehouse teams across the UK are working against the clock to deliver one of the products we all take for granted – newspapers and magazines.

Newspapers are one of the fundamentals of life in this country; yet most people don't know about the vast, hidden network that gets them into the shops every day.

It is what Smiths News refer to as "the nightly miracle."

The Peterborough house has one of the largest distribution areas within the Smiths News' 44-depots nationwide operation.

Smiths News PLC is a leading national wholesaler of newspapers and magazines – it gets the news from the publishers to the shops.

And according to distribution manager Richie Allen, "it's an exciting, fast-paced industry to work in."

Richie, who has been with the company 26 years, the last five at Peterborough, said: "We are dealing with up-to-the-minute stuff, pushing deadlines all the time.

"It's a bit of an adrenalin rush – those early hours when the big lorries come in with the latest editions of the national newspapers is something else.

"Everyone works up to the very last seconds of the deadline. Speed and efficiency are the touchstones of the service – after all, the news must never be late."

The company serves 1,400 retailers big and small – from major supermarkets to tiny corner shops.

It also delivers to "roundsmen", especially in rural areas, who do one delivery only to households.

So, if you buy a copy of the Peterborough Citizen or Hello magazine in your local Tesco, petrol station or country shop, chances are that Smiths News has put it there.

Staff work either a day shift, 7am to 5.30pm, or twilight shift, 6pm to 3am, packing magazines ready for distribution.

The newspaper operation gets under way at about 2.30am, when vans are loaded with magazines and local newspapers.

Newspapers cover the greater Peterborough area, as far north as Sleaford, across to Sutton Bridge on the coast, St Neots in the south and Oundle to the west.

Titles are also packed and trunked for satellite depots at King's Lynn, Bury St Edmunds and Cambridge.

Magazines embrace the wider area extending to Saffron Walden to the south, Sudbury in the east and Hunstanton on the coast.

The Peterborough depot employs 100 permanent staff, plus 30 self-employed contractors with their own delivery vehicles.