Hud does not display variable from other blueprint

I am trying to create a Hud Controller blueprint to hold the values of things I will display in a hud. All of the examples I have seen documented use the thirdperson or firstperson controller with a variable that is then used in the HUD widget blueprint and bound to the hud text. I can get this working but I do not have a thirdperson or firstperson controller in scene and wanted to create a blueprint class with the variables to hook up to the hud. I have tried a Actor and character class ( I named: HudController_blueprint) and I can in their blueprint add a print variable to see the variable change. But when I add the HudController as a variable in my Hud widget class and connect it to the Hud widget text it does not display.
What am I doing wrong?

Thanks
Lee