I created the custom fields in wordpress using the plugin rathr than custom code.
here's the code Im using to display the field...
$section = rwmb_meta( 'section' );
$section_key = 0;
$text = $section[$section_key]['content_blurb'];
echo $text;
As I said the other things display fine but the p tags dont seem to be being created when the field is being edited.