There is a site somewhere that has these expressions explained, but of course, tonight I can't find it.

I like the upper crust explaination. Bread was baked in wood or coal fired ovens. The bottom of the oven got covered in cinders and crap. When the bread was taken out, it was sliced horizontally. The nice clean top bit was given to the 'gentry'. The middle bit was given to the poorer members of the community and the crunchy cindered crusts given to the poorest. Hence, the rich were 'the upper crust'.

Similarly, if someone was 'bottom drawer' it was a reference to the habit of poorer people bedding infants in the bottom drawer of the chest. They couldn't afford to get a cradle, having neither the money or the space so bedded the infant in the bottom drawer until it was bigger.

Limpit spent the first 6 months of her life on top of a chest of drawers, there being no room elsewhere in our bedroom for a crib... what does that make her?

LTS