GOT THE GAMECONTROLLER SINGLETON WORKING!!!
i have a var in the singletone (game controller class) and on mainmenu awake a text element shows the init value(false), then when pressing next the value is altered (true) and a debug shows this. at the next screen the text label also shows the value (true).
this is significant because:
1)the game controller is NOT in the hierarchy for level 2 so accessing a value from its member var means its static & that the global class is accessed
2)the value that was set at the point of clicking 'next' is maintained to the next level!!!
(juxtapose this with the player object which is new instance in each scene thus values like score are inited to 0)

-next thing to do is store values in player prefs so data is persistent across play sessions