display post meta data

I am having trouble displaying custom meta data. I have tried these two bits of code in my loop:

echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'towns', true);

$key="towns"; echo get_post_meta($post->ID, $key, true);

They both display “Type Town” and I want to only display the data which is the actual town.

Can someone tell me where I am going wrong please?

Thanks

Martin