Residents of a market town in Suffolk have reacted with the sort of weary stoicism normally reserved for roadworks and Morris dancers after a desperate Suffolk man stays cool by sleeping inside the local Co-op frozen pea aisle.
By Our Farming Correspondent (intern): Ivor Traktor
The man, understood to be 43-year-old Gary Petch of no fixed thermostat, reportedly fashioned a temporary bed between the garden peas and the slightly pricier petit pois after declaring his semi-detached house had become “less a home and more a medium-roast conservatory with a mortgage”.
Store staff say Mr Petch first entered the shop at 9.12pm carrying a pillow, a thin duvet and what witnesses described as “the face of a man who has spent all afternoon arguing with a fan”. By 9.18pm he had settled himself in the frozen section, nodding politely to shoppers while using a family bag of Co-op own-brand peas as what experts in British make-do ingenuity would recognise as a highly efficient neck support.
Sleeping inside frozen aisle adventure
The incident, which Co-op management has classified as “not ideal but understandable”, comes as temperatures across the county rose to the sort of level that prompts local radio presenters to speak in hushed, dramatic tones about hydration. In villages from Stowmarket to Woodbridge, residents have spent the week closing curtains, opening windows, then closing them again after another resident said you must never open windows in heat because it lets the heat in, before opening them once more because otherwise you die.
Mr Petch appears to have taken a more direct route.
“I tried everything,” he told reporters from a position of visible comfort beside the frozen sweetcorn. “I put my feet in a washing-up bowl. I slept with a damp flannel on my forehead. I stood in the downstairs loo pretending it was a cave. Nothing worked. Then I remembered the Co-op has three freezers, proper lighting and no one in Suffolk asks questions unless smoke is involved.”
Shoppers say the arrangement was remarkably unobtrusive. One woman buying fish fingers said she initially assumed he was a promotional display for energy efficiency. Another said she only realised he was alive when he rolled over and muttered, “If anyone wants me, I’m between the peas and the pizza.” A retired couple from Needham Market described the scene as “odd but no odder than self-checkouts”.
How the aisle became Suffolk’s coolest place
The frozen pea aisle has, according to regular customers, long been one of the store’s more dependable microclimates. Positioned two rows down from the meal deals and safely away from the front windows, it offers a crisp, even chill and the emotional reassurance of seeing food that has made peace with being cold.
Mr Petch is said to have carried out a brief but thorough survey of available sleeping zones before choosing peas over chips. “Chips are too rowdy,” he explained. “You get families hovering, all comparing wedges. Peas are quieter. They attract planners. Organised people. If you’re trying to kip, you want the sort of crowd who know exactly what they came in for.”
That judgement appears to have been sound. By Tuesday morning he had developed an informal rapport with several early shoppers, one of whom brought him a copy of the local paper, while another offered him a travel mug of tea that instantly lost most of its appeal in the sub-zero ambience. Children reportedly regarded him as either a local celebrity or the natural end point of British adulthood.
The store manager didnt bother
Store manager Daniel Hurr, speaking with the fixed smile of a man who knows head office will not have prepared him for this specific query, said staff had attempted to move Mr Petch on in line with company policy. “We did politely explain that the frozen aisle is for produce, not pension planning,” he said. “But he pointed out he was lying still, keeping to his own section and actually improving footfall. We’re in a difficult area of retail law there.”
According to sources, sales of frozen vegetables rose sharply during the man’s overnight stay, with several customers admitting they had entered purely to “have a quick look at him” and then bought two bags of peas out of embarrassment. One local councillor has already described the episode as “a creative high street success story” and asked whether market towns could be revitalised through controlled indoor napping.
The wider community response has been predictably British. On social media, some praised Mr Petch as a folk hero of the heatwave, a man brave enough to do what thousands had privately considered while standing in front of the open fridge at midnight. Others condemned the stunt as irresponsible, warning that if everyone started bedding down in supermarket freezers, normal public life would become impossible, especially on pension day.
Why the pea aisle?
There has also been controversy over the choice of peas. A vocal minority insists broad beans would have provided superior back support, while traditionalists argue no self-respecting Suffolk heat refugee should ignore the structural reliability of frozen Yorkshire puddings. Mr Petch remains unmoved. “Peas mould to you,” he said. “That’s compassion. Chips just sit there being chips.”
Local government has been dragged into the affair after one district official was asked whether public buildings could be opened as cooling spaces during periods of exceptional heat. He replied that they already were, technically, but most of them were shut for lunch, two training days and what he called “legacy reasons”. This has done little to discourage residents from considering alternative civic infrastructure, with one man in Felixstowe said to be eyeing up the chilled yoghurts in Tesco as a possible annexe.
Medical opinion, insofar as anyone was willing to offer it on the record, has been mixed. One GP said sleeping in a pea aisle was not generally recommended, but conceded it was probably safer than attempting a full night in a loft conversion facing south. Another health professional said the main risk was waking at 3am to find yourself spooning a bag of mixed vegetables and having to explain that to paramedics.
All about faith
For his part, Mr Petch has become oddly philosophical about the whole thing. He says the experience has restored his faith in community, low temperatures and the basic decency of supermarket staff. “No one made a fuss,” he said. “That’s Suffolk all over. You can be tucked up next to 800 grams of petits pois and people just go, ‘Fair enough, it is warm.'”
Co-op insiders say the company is now reviewing guidance for colleagues faced with similar situations, although one source admitted there is no obvious training module for “customer using frozen aisle as boutique Scandinavian retreat”. A temporary sign was briefly considered, reading: Please do not sleep with the vegetables, but plans were dropped on the grounds that it sounded judgemental.
The affair has already inspired copycat behaviour elsewhere in the region. In Lowestoft, a man allegedly spent 20 minutes standing inside a drinks chiller at a petrol station claiming he was “just comparing waters”. In Ipswich, one office worker held an entire team meeting in the refrigerated stockroom of a sandwich shop under the pretence of discussing strategy. Britain, once again, is adapting in the only way it knows how – by carrying on badly and pretending that counts as resilience.
Theory behind
Yet there is, buried under the comedy and the frost, a peculiarly modern truth to all this. Houses built to trap heat now trap all of it. Fans move hot air from one side of a room to the other with the hopeless diligence of junior civil servants. Public spaces are designed either for buying things or being moved along. If a frozen pea aisle starts looking like a practical municipal service, perhaps the peas are not the strange part.
At the time of writing, Mr Petch had agreed to leave the store each morning by 8am, partly out of respect for school-run traffic and partly because the bakery section begins to smell too good. He was last seen folding his duvet, thanking staff and promising to return only if the mercury rises further or his upstairs bedroom resumes what he called “active hostility”.
For anyone tempted to follow his lead, neighbours have offered a simpler compromise: draw the curtains, drink some water, stop pretending the loft room is usable in July and, if all else fails, at least choose a frozen aisle with dignity.