Paul McCartney has many fond memories of his childhood in Liverpool, but one of his earliest is surprisingly violent. When reminiscing on his youth, the former Beatle spoke about the way his mother interacted with the community. In an offhand comment, he recalled another one of his earliest memories.

Paul McCartney shared one of his earliest memories

When McCartney was a child, his mother, Mary, worked as a midwife. She was tirelessly hardworking and earned the respect of the families in the area. McCartney recalled a time when someone gave her a plaster dog as a thank you.

“It was out of gratitude for some delivery she had done,” he said in The Beatles: The Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies. “People were always giving her presents like that.”

McCartney said watching his mother receive this dog was his earliest memory. Another more violent one also stood out in the furthest reaches of his mind.

“I have another memory, of hiding from someone then hitting them over the head with an iron bar,” he admitted. “But I think the plaster dog was the earliest.”

Paul McCartney shared his fond memories of his mother

McCartney’s mother died when he was a teenager. Upon reflection, he found it strange that they scarcely discussed her death.

“It was so strange that the loss of our mother to cancer was simply not discussed,” he told People. “We barely knew what cancer was, but I’m now not surprised that the whole experience surfaced in this song where sweetness competes with a pain you can’t quite describe.”

While he said that some of his memories of her have faded, but he can still remember that she smelled like Nivea cold cream.

“My mum’s favorite cold cream was Nivea, and I love it to this day,” McCartney wrote for The New Yorker. “That’s the cold cream I was thinking of in the description of the face Eleanor keeps ‘in a jar by the door.’ I was always a little scared by how often women used cold cream.”

He went on to include this as a detail in “Eleanor Rigby.”

He said he had a pleasant childhood

While McCartney has one violent memory, he said he had a good childhood. He felt this especially strongly when speaking to John Lennon. Lennon’s mother also died in his youth, and he was raised by his aunt.

“When I used to talk to John about his childhood, I realized that mine was so much warmer,” McCartney said, per The Beatles Anthology. “I think that’s why I grew up to be so open about sentimentality in particular.”

McCartney believed his childhood gave him a sentimentality that has benefited him over the years.

“I really don’t mind being sentimental,” he said, adding, “I know a lot of people look on it as uncool. I see it as a pretty valuable asset.”