This reminds me of music writer Johnny Rogan, who describes living in a flat with no bathroom or toilet and no electricity in the 1960s, when postwar austerity was STILL not over. They had gas lighting, and they used a shared bathroom and a chamber pot at night, rather than making the trek to the shared loo.
He lived a stone's throw from the glamorous haunts of Swinging London, whose luminaries he would later chronicle.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/johnny-rogan-obituary-one-of-the-most-well-regarded-music-biographers-of-his-generation-1.4489427