diff --git a/Changes b/Changes
index 7e3349be..59ca5862 100644
--- a/Changes
+++ b/Changes
@@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
+Michael Houghton (1):
+    Modified HTTP::Message::new to check $content to see if it is a ref.
+    Use the content_ref method to add $content in properly if it is a ref.
+    This addresses issue #13 in GitHub
+    Test added to t/message.t that fails in 6.06
+
+_______________________________________________________________________________
+2015-04-23 HTTP-Message 6.07
 
 Added support for is_client_error, is_server_error to HTTP::Response
 (Karen Etheridge)
diff --git a/lib/HTTP/Message.pm b/lib/HTTP/Message.pm
index 37ce2772..a9d83a6f 100644
--- a/lib/HTTP/Message.pm
+++ b/lib/HTTP/Message.pm
@@ -49,10 +49,16 @@ sub new
         $content = '';
     }
 
-    bless {
+    my $self = bless {
 	'_headers' => $header,
 	'_content' => $content,
     }, $class;
+    
+    # docs say content should be bytes, but refs are OK
+    # the code above does not downgrade a ref properly, so this will do the trick
+    $self->content_ref($content) if (ref($content));
+    
+    return $self;
 }
 
 
diff --git a/t/message.t b/t/message.t
index 3182b765..17ff3270 100644
--- a/t/message.t
+++ b/t/message.t
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 use strict;
 use Test qw(plan ok skip);
 
-plan tests => 129;
+plan tests => 131;
 
 require HTTP::Message;
 use Config qw(%Config);
@@ -492,3 +492,9 @@ else {
 # test decoding of XML content
 $m = HTTP::Message->new(["Content-Type", "application/xml"], "\xFF\xFE<\0?\0x\0m\0l\0 \0v\0e\0r\0s\0i\0o\0n\0=\0\"\x001\0.\x000\0\"\0 \0e\0n\0c\0o\0d\0i\0n\0g\0=\0\"\0U\0T\0F\0-\x001\x006\0l\0e\0\"\0?\0>\0\n\0<\0r\0o\0o\0t\0>\0\xC9\0r\0i\0c\0<\0/\0r\0o\0o\0t\0>\0\n\0");
 ok($m->decoded_content, "<?xml version=\"1.0\"?>\n<root>\xC9ric</root>\n");
+
+# 
+$foo = "фу"; # Cyrillic "foo"
+$m = HTTP::Message->new(undef, \$foo);
+ok($m->content, "фу");
+ok($m->decoded_content, "фу");
\ No newline at end of file