OH, for the heady days, back in the ‘80s, busking in Garema Place, writing poems for “Muse” magazine, enjoying the ANU when it was still a real campus…

Yes, Tim Ferguson, is in a sentimental mood when photographer Silas Brown and I catch up with him at Tosolini’s.

And though he’s become very famous since then, travelling the world (even playing Timbuktu) as a member of the Doug Anthony Allstars, a shock jock, an author and now as a coach in comedy, those happy days of group-house living and music-making still grab the soul.

He even remembers Stephen Pike playing Claude in “Hair” for Tempo Theatre.

Now he’s coming “home” again with his own show, “Carry a Big Stick”. There’s a double meaning – Ferguson is still a formidable person, but he also needs a stick because of multiple sclerosis symptoms. It’s all in the show.

“I didn’t know I had it first, maybe from about age 19… I had a bizarre collection of symptoms – buzzing in my head and elbows and it was hard to sleep,” he says.

Then, at age 32, he had an MRI and the specialist showed him “all the scleroses”.

MS kept him out of the public eye for years, but Ferguson turned to teaching and, with the aid of voice-recognition software, writing, successfully helping himself to “have a life”.

These days, his bread-and-butter career is taking classes at RMIT on how to write comedy.

“I can teach it,” he says. “And yet,” he roars, “I’m the only teacher of narrative comedy in Australia – it’s a bloody outrage.”

So will his 80-minute show be stand-up or sit-down comedy? I ask as politely as I can. “I’ll be standing up, then sitting down as fast as possible,” he says.

“Carry a Big Stick,” The Playhouse, October 19. Bookings to 6275 2700 or www.canberraticketing.com.au