'MOVING in' is as bad or worse than 'moving out'. The walls are bare, an expert picture hanger is needed, so are a few strong lads. Those books and boxes of glass, china and paraphernalia seem to get heavier with every move. Did you ever dream that crockery lifting could give a hernia and at my age I could do without heroics.

Something that slows me down is picking up an old newspaper and being amazed at the headlines printed more than 30 years ago.

This happened today. A front page devoted to Mohammad Ali, the boxer once known as Cassius Clay. I read every word and felt an overwhelming love for this legend.

These days, he is not well and falls short of the star we knew, but looking back he had it all.

He had looks, he had beauty, grace, humour, charisma, daring, plus a knowledge of the fight game unequalled by many of the fighters that were unlucky enough to try to match his cunning and know-how. There was nothing like him before and certainly nothing since.

When the day comes, as it does to all of us, and we have to bid this great entertainer farewell, I hope there is the equivalent of a state funeral for Mohammad Ali. There is none who deserves it more, especially from the American people who gave him such a rough ride in his early days.

When he refused to fight as a conscripted soldier, saying: "Why do I want to go killing somebody I have never known or met?" he was one of the first dissidents to make sense.

But he was made to suffer for uttering those few simple words by many who are still around to be ashamed at the treatment meted out to this man with "the grace of a butterfly".

There will be many writers lining up to say and write reams of praise for this legend in his own time, the man that put the fight game in perspective for many of us.

My interest in Ali stemmed from the fact that my father was a professional boxer. He fought many times under the name Tom Smith of Bermondsey, at the Ring Blackfriars, in south London.

He retired at 32 after four years in the trenches of France as a private soldier trying to prove himself as a pro. In those trenches there was not much opportunity for staying fit; sometimes the rainwater and mud was more than six inches thick.

He retired with a cauliflower ear that damaged his hearing and knuckles that were non existent through punching bags of sawdust.

He retired to become a stevedore at the Surrey Docks in south London, his pleasure was his copy of the sports magazine The Ring which he bought when he could afford it. Otherwise he borrowed a copy from a buddy named Chopper Howlett, who gained some fame as an all- in wrestler, which was becoming big box office in the early 1930s.

Dad's biggest disappointment in life was that neither my brother Harry or myself took up fisticuffs.

Harry became the landlord of a large pub in south London with a staff of 30 and counted many of the Great Train Robbers among his customers.

I was topping the bill at London Palladium. Dad once told us of his disappointment, saying: "I was hoping for two welterweights. Look what I've got - one serves drinks to drunks, the other goes on a stage making a fool of himself."

At the time I was the highest paid entertainer in Great Britain, which goes to show, you can't win 'em all.

This is not an obituary on Mohammad Ali, I'd just like to be able to pen these words while we are both alive.