KING ARTHUR and Cornwall? It's been a discussion – sometimes an argument – that has rumbled on for generations.

My tutor Edmund Sedding told me: "There's probably no such a thing as absolute legend."

Edmund, whose family hailed from St Breock, told me: "Among those castle ruins at Tintagel I had the strongest feelings that Arthur had been here."

Some 50 years later Colin Wilson explained, over a glass of wine at The Cornish Arms, Pendoggett: "I find it difficult to recall any famous mythical figure who was pure invention."

And the more recent authorship of Paul Broadhurst, of Egloskerry, makes an especially strong case for Arthur.

There is no more original researcher alive and Paul's book, The Secret Land, The Origins Of Arthurian Legend And The Grail Quest, is a classic. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, would have relished every word and picture.

Prophecy

It contains a romantic image: Edward Burne-Jones's painting of the wounded King Arthur after the Battle of Camlann.

Paul's caption reads: "Ancient British tradition has always claimed that Arthur is not dead, but sleeping. Where does he lie? As discovered in this book, he lies slumbering in the land itself, as well as in our own collective memory, and may, as the old prophecy suggests, be ready to reawaken."

Now there's a prospect.

And what about these Arthurian place names in Guardian Country? King Arthur's Downs and King Arthur's Hall, out on the moor beyond St Breward.

Slaughterbridge, near Camelford, which folklorists say was Arthur's final battlefield.

While upstream in a nook lies a stone with moss and strange lettering. It's known locally as Arthur's grave.

Then there's a large rock basin on the western edge of Trewortha Tor called King Arthur's Bed.

Now on to Trethevy Quoit on the eastern edge of the moor. When Joan Bettinson came here with me, a few years ago, she said: "This is Arthur's Quoit. You'll find it's called that in old records. I have seen such documents."

Joan smiled and added: "Smoke without fire?"

So we go across to Dozmary Pool, that sheet of beautiful water saturated in Arthurian tales. How pools stir us. They are images of the unknown and the lost – and of potential recovery.

Even on a brilliant sunlit January morning you are aware of unseen presences. When the St Austell author Paul Newman came here he wrote in his notebook "…there is a sense of being watched".

Here, too, we think of Morgan Le Fay, the King's half-sister, the ruler of the Island of Avalon where Arthur was taken for the treatment of wounds sustained in that last battle.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s I knew a man who claimed to have been Merlin in an earlier life. The cynics may scoff but his knowledge of Arthurian matters was phenomenal.

Leadership

I asked him about his role as Arthur's mentor. What kind of young man was he?

"Arthur personified the best type of Eton boy. Without any showing off, he quietly expected to do well. He had charm and natural leadership qualities. A reassuring presence.

"The Court of Camelot was no misty ideal. Arthur created it and sustained it for a long time. And, as with Churchill, it was all there in his youth. You could see great things coming."

At this point in our case for Arthur it might be appropriate to say something about reincarnation.

About three decades ago I was involved in several radio broadcasts from Plymouth and Taunton talking to people who claimed to have been Arthurian characters.

I expected a stream of abuse from listeners, or just disbelief but, incredibly, we had hardly any criticism.

Dennis Wheatley, the occult novelist, was a down-to-earth character. He had served as an officer in the Royal Field Artillery in the First World War and, in the last war, as Wing Commander Wheatley, was a member of Winston Churchill's Joint Planning Staff of the War Cabinet.

He was quite sure reincarnation was the only logical explanation for life here on Earth and life after death.

As he put it: "I'm a convinced believer in reincarnation. Look into it. It's the only complete and satisfactory answer to everything."

I merely give this information as background to our debate. Many people would not subscribe to such a view but there is a greater spirit of tolerance today.

Getting back to the Once and Future King, it is interesting how he has generated so much in the way of books and films.

I am, though, surprised and disappointed that few modern painters have been inspired to paint the occasional Arthurian scene. Something perhaps at Dozmary Pool, or Guinevere standing on the cliffs at Tintagel?

What a majestic figure she would make in that awe-inspiring setting.

We do, at least, have some impressive art at King Arthur's Great Halls in Tintagel. What a place it is: inspiring us, lighting our imagination.

Most – if not all – of the paintings are by William Hatherell, RI, famous as an illustrator and painter.

Enthralling

Beautiful, heavy Pre-Raphaelite overtones, they are now the story boards for the Son et Lumiere narrated by Robert Powell – an enthralling experience.

It was in August 1998 that Tintagel and Arthur combined brilliantly, making national and international news – a broken piece of slate which archaeologists showed as if it were the most precious object they had ever held.

The green-grey stone, with an inscription scratched on it, was found in the castle ruins.

Dr Geoffrey Wainwright, chief archaeologist with English Heritage, said: "Tintagel has presented us with evidence of a court in the Arthurian period … buildings, high status finds and the name Arthnou.

"Arthnou was here. That's his name on the stone. It's where myth meets history. That single piece of slate suddenly illuminates the era they called the Dark Ages."

Moreover, the experts dated it to the sixth century AD, coinciding with the time Arthur was clashing with the invading Angles: the best possible news for business people in Trevena, as the village was once called.

Thousands of pieces of pottery from the same time proved the area had a lucrative trade with the Middle East and North Africa.

And there was the first piece of glass from a Spanish flagon to be discovered in Britain during that chapter in our history.

"Did King Arthur drink from it?" was the excited question.

The debate, of course, continues but more and more of us are convinced of the reality of Arthur. Sherlock Holmes would surely agree.