It's hard to imagine that the quiet South Derbyshire village of Willington was home to a worldwide publication which distributed more than two million copies annually.

But that is precisely what was happening from the Twyford Road home of John Lewis in 1982.

When the Burton Mail visited the headquarters of the magazine Soon, the publication was already celebrating its 20th anniversary.

Mr Lewis first hit on the idea of publishing a religious magazine after reading a French publication called Bientot which was distributed by missionaries working in Africa’s Ivory Coast.

He quickly realised that English was considered to be the basic learning language of the world and decided to launch an easy-to-read English publication for distribution in Third World countries.

From an initial print order of 10,000 copies, the magazine had grown by the early 1980s to a print run of 500,000 every quarter.

Most of the magazines were distributed in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and India but there was also huge demand for them in China where English was being taught in more than 200,000 schools.

The spread of the magazine was so great that it wasn’t unusual to receive correspondence relating to issues that had appeared more than a decade earlier.

Each magazine had been passed down from person to person and town to town and so a reader’s letter on a story 10 years old was the norm.

Breaking into the academic world also created unprecedented demand, with the publication offering a four-part distance learning course called Teach Yourself the Good Life.

Successful applicants received a certificate that was highly valued in developing countries.

Mr Lewis said that “the word of the Lord” was the central theme running through the magazine and its interest and impact could be measured by the Soon magazine’s weekly postbag of 7,000 letters.

Distributing the magazine fell to a team of 650 dispatch groups made up of around 3,000 people in the UK and 1,000 people worldwide.

Speaking in 1982, Mr Lewis said he found it difficult to estimate the total cost of the operation but said the printing costs alone were around £5,000 with the additional educational programmes costing a further £5,000.

The key question on many people’s lips was: “where does the money come from?”.

Mr Lewis said: “We believe that God wants us to do this, in which case, he can very well cause people to supply the money – which he has done.”

But demand for the magazine increased so much in places like oil-rich Nigeria, that magazines had to be rationed.

With such a huge print run, you would expect the Twyford Road home of Mr Lewis to be chaotic but he described it as an operation that continued almost unnoticed in solitude.

He said: “Ultimately, our magazine is designed to bring wider understanding in the world, through reading and education.

“But more important, to spread the Word of God and the foretold Second Coming of Christ”.