Eton Montem Eton Montem Eton Montem (or "ad Montem" – literally "to the Mountain") was a custom observed by Eton College from at least 1561 until it was finally suppressed in 1847, at the Montem Mound (or Salt Hill) in Chalvey, Slough, Buckinghamshire (later Berkshire). The mound is situated some 2 miles from the college near the London to Bath coach road, now the A4. Montem is first reported in William Malim's "consuetudinarium" (book of customs) of 1561, when it seems to have been an initiation ceremony for new boys, who were scattered with salt (which can mean 'wit' as well as
The Eton Rifles elite. Their cadet corps is the Eton College Combined Cadet Force, which was founded in 1860 as the Eton College Rifle Corps. The lyrics of the song recount the difficulties faced by the unemployed and lower-paid working class in protesting against a system stacked against them. The song recounts a street battle Paul Weller had read about in the newspapers concerning elements of a right-to-work march through Slough in 1978 breaking off to attack pupils from Eton who had been jeering the lunchtime marchers (hence "Hello, Hooray, an extremist scrape with the Eton Rifles"). The song's lyrics, in common with