Mark Brandon Currie was born on 11 September 1908 in Wolstanton, Staffordshire, to John Currie and Jessie (nee Brandon). His parents had married in 1907 but his father John was an artist who left to live in London, and who was in Hampstead by the time of the 1911 census, whilst Mark and his mother were living with her parents in Staffordshire.
Mark's father died in tragic circumstances in Chelsea in October 1914, by this time a well-known painter whose works were widely exhibited. Mark himself died on Christmas Day 1994, in Kenilworth, a dear father and grandfather.