Xbox One backwards compatibility and cloud saves

This is a bit of a complex issue so I will try and break it down as I can.

I had an Xbox 360 for many years but I never ever had Xbox live gold because I am not interested in multiplayer gaming. Obviously, I have a standard Xbox live account.

I had been playing through the orange box on Xbox 360, and understood that in order to continue to play where I left off on Xbox One, I first would have to save my save game data into the cloud. However I tried to do this on Xbox 360 but wasn’t successful. I could not find a way to do it and I presumed that this was because I did not have a gold membership?

I therefore resigned myself to starting the orange box games again from the very start on Xbox One, as I would have no saved data on Xbox one X. I didn’t manage so much as I really enjoyed these games and was happy to play them all again. I did back up the orange box Xbox 360 save data to a pen drive, but I had read online that this wasn’t really going to work on Xbox One X anyway…

So, I recently purchased an Xbox One X, and inserted the orange box disc. I knew that I would have to start the games again because the backwards compatibility on Xbox One only reads save data from the cloud, and that I had been unable to do this on Xbox 360 prior to purchasing my Xbox One X .

Before I restarted the game on Xbox One X, I decided to make use of the £1 offer of one month of Xbox live gold membership, and I also signed up for the similar offer for games pass. I realise thesse subscriptions will continue to renew unless I cancel them however I am really not interested in multiplayer gaming and so the Xbox live gold membership feels of very little value to me and I would rather not continue with it ( Games pass, however, feels of much better value).

I am making good progress in half life 2 now on Xbox One X, and really enjoying it. However because the save data is reliant on the cloud, does this mean that I have to continue to be an Xbox live gold member forever in order to utilise any kind of save data on any backwards compatible game (even those started entirely afresh on Xbox One X), and continue to make new save games on these games?

Really hope this makes sense. Basically do I have to be a continued Xbox live gold member in order to really use backwards compatibility, given that this is apparently very very reliant on the cloud save feature which I understand to be on Xbox live gold only feature?

I am concerned that if I cancel my gold membership (I.E.do not continue beyond the £1 one month trial) and then try and start any new backwards compatibility games, I will not be able to make any new save games at all!!

I am new to Xbox so sorry if these questions seem stupid. I have tried looking online and not found any answers