[2][3] Born at Arnside, Cumbria, and educated at the Friends School Lancaster and the University of Edinburgh, Braithwaite qualified as a Veterinary Surgeon in 1947.

Already a notable game shot, in 1956 he began competing in trap shooting events and within a short time he had become one of the country's leading target shooters.

[4] Qualifying again for the 1968 Games in Mexico City his busy veterinary practice provided him with little time to travel to the few training grounds available.

Instead he installed a powerful oscillating trap on a piece of ground known as Rough Lot, adjacent to the Braithwaites' old family farm.

Braithwaite's achievement represents one of the last occasions in the history of the Olympic Games in which a gifted amateur with steely determination and great skill won over a field consisting predominantly of commercially sponsored and government-funded professionals.