Using set-value with textarea

[eluser]Perkin5[/eluser]
I have a form with inputs and a textarea. I have no problem with using set_value with the inputs but a textarea is different. You would normally but any default text between the textarea tags but they don't appear when using form_helper. At the moment I'm doing:

Code:

$data = array(
        'name'=>'comments',
        'id'=>'message',
        'value'=>set_value('comments')
        );
    echo form_textarea($data);

I'm using tinymice in the textarea as well by the way. The above code almost works but the retained text is surrounded with p tags.

I know I shouldn't be using value in a textarea but how else can I do it?