ONE of Hana Ali's earliest memories is of being carried through an airport in her father's arms.

As the pair proceeded towards the plane, it seemed like everyone in the airport was stopping on sight of them.

"I remember the thunderous feeling, the thumping in my chest. I was three years old and looking at all the people crying and saying 'You're the greatest', and clapping as he walked by. I looked at him and I remember thinking 'Who is he? What did daddy do?'"

Daddy was Muhammad Ali, and the story of how he came to bring airports, and sometimes entire countries (such as the then Zaire, location of The Rumble in the Jungle), to a standstill is set out in a new documentary, I Am Ali. Directed by Clare Lewins, the film tells the story of the world heavyweight boxing champion from many different perspectives, including those of his manager, his opponents, one of his four wives, and the photographer who shot the famous Esquire cover with Ali as Saint Sebastian, pierced by arrows.

While the interviews are illuminating and the footage first class, Lewin's film can boast a remarkable added extra besides - tape recordings, made by Ali, of telephone conversations with some of his children (seven daughters, two sons) and others. In the same way that he used to keep their childhood drawings, says Hana, telling them that this was "valuable stuff", so he would record some of his calls home, reckoning that the children, when grown, would get a kick out of it. He gave the tapes to Hana 11 years ago.

Speaking from Los Angeles, she says: "It was a beautiful self-made legacy he created, right at the time when his voice was beginning to fade. I went home and felt like I lost myself in the house for probably a month listening all day every day and night."

The tapes are playful and deeply affectionate, but sometimes painfully poignant, as when Ali phones another of his daughters, May May, in 1979 and tells her he might go back in the ring again. "Don't fight again, please," she tells him, adding that he is too old. Two years later, he had his last fight, and in 1984 he was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease.

May May says the film shows another side of her father, as a family man, of which even the most ardent fan may not be fully aware. The first she knew of the tapes was when Hana told her. "I didn't know he kept them over the years. He cherished them and he didn't want to give them away like he gave away everything else."

Ali, 72, now lives in Arizona. Both daughters say his condition remains much as to be expected, despite recent reports that he was fading.

"Parkinson's is degenerative and progressive, it is what it is," says May May. "The best way for people to understand him is to read up on Parkinson's. He's fine, he's comfortable, he does have 24-hour care because he can't walk like he used to, he can't talk like he used to talk, but there are so many false stories, like he is on his death bed. We get that a lot. Sometimes family members misspeak, they may not see him as often as his kids and they kinda say crazy things but… they mean well, everyone cares for him and loves him. He's consistent, there's no real story in terms of his health changing."

Hana adds: "The world will know when something really is the matter because they are not going to see any of us talking in the press or anywhere else in public because we'll be by his bedside."

May May recalls that conversation her 11-year-old self had with her dad about going back in the ring. "That was a time where anyone who really loved him didn't want him to fight. And I was right, he was too old, he shouldn't have been boxing."

What both daughters hope is that I Am Ali brings their father's story before a new generation, and that they will see that his legacy was not just confined to the ring. Beloved as he is today, Lewin's film shows a time when Ali was not America and the world's sweetheart. His opposition to the Vietnam War and his refusal to fight in it led to his boxing license being revoked for three years. His prominent support for Civil Rights, and later conversion to Islam, also earned him enemies.

Hana says she is not surprised at what her father went through given the times, but she is astonished that he retained no lasting bitterness. "Especially considering everything my father has been through, to be able to keep that love in his heart, never to judge people, never to have hate, the times he came up in, the prejudice of America and the horrors he watched and experienced, and to still maintain that love for all people is just amazing."

There is one other thing she finds remarkable. "What is surprising in a

way is how my father made it through the Sixties, Seventies unharmed where leaders and people were being killed every day just for speaking, wanting peace. He was meant to make it through that time."

Besides his talents in the ring and an ability to talk up a storm, Ali had a flair for magic tricks, and loved putting on a show for his children. May May says he would always show them later how the tricks were done to make the point that one should always question what one saw. Hana recalls rushing down to his office on waking - he was always up at dawn, a legacy of training - and her dad would put on a hat and cape, spill the tricks on the floor, and go through a routine. "He loved to perform and make people smile."

Hana, 38 is now a behaviour specialist working with children, and May May, 46, is a social worker. May May says a large part of her job involves bringing families together. One of the things she hopes people will take from the film is how important it is for parents and children to talk to each other.

"Engage your children and listen to their issues, their problems, their opinions," she says. "My father paid attention to what I was talking about, my opinion was important to him, he didn't care that I was 11, he wanted to talk to me about going back into the ring, what I thought. Be in your children's lives in that kind of way."

Hana has written two books about her father and now plans to make the tapes the basis of another. The tapes used in the film amount to 12 minutes, but the entire collection runs to 90 hours, covering the period 1976-1985.

She says her dad, who was unable to attend the film's premieres in LA and New York, still likes to make the headlines. Sometimes, she says, he asks if people still remember him. Of course, she tells him.

"I don't think anyone will ever forget him," she says. "History won't let them."

I Am Ali is in cinemas, and on Blu-Ray, DVD and digital download from November 28.