Sorry all, I have fixed it. Getting too tired to notice :-(

ended up going with:

my $emailname=$defaults{Mail}{FromName}||"";
my $emailaddr=$defaults{Mail}{From}||"$ENV{USER}";
my $emailcombined='"' . $emailname . '" <' . $emailaddr .'>';

 my $msg=MIME::Lite->new(
       'From'    =>$emailcombined,
etc
[download]

I would still be interested in other ways to do this.

Thanks.