Fife’s jobs of the future will be one of the key themes at a launch of the book History Of Fife, written by former Prime Minister and local MP Gordon Brown.

Brown and co-author, the broadcaster and historian Alistair Moffat, will highlight the local renewables industry and suggest that in a few days a fateful decision will be made on a contract for 50 wind farm turbine jackets that should be coming to Fife but may go to Indonesia.

As they trace the fate of mining, linen, electronics and defence work in Fife they will urge that a special effort is made to secure new engineering jobs, chief of which is work manufacturing wind turbines for wind farms which will be built just off the local coastline.

Joined by Provost Jim Leishman the book will have its launch this Friday at Dunfermline Abbey at 7pm and the book will cover Fife’s textile, mining, and Dockyard histories - where Fife has often led the world.

Discussion will also focus on Fife’s sporting, leisure, education and transport history - with a special section on Andrew Carnegie whose UK trust, with the support of former UK chair Angus Hogg, has helped fund the project.

Mr Brown will tell the audience: “It is nothing less than a national scandal that the contract for billions of pounds of wind farms a few miles off the coast of Fife is tipped to be awarded to an Indonesian yard 7,000 miles away.

“This is despite promises from both Scottish and UK governments that 60 per cent of offshore renewable work would come to workers and communities here.

“Near to my home the once-vibrant Burntisland and Methil yards that for years built up an expertise in wind turbines are lying empty.

“And in a devastating blow to Scottish workers, the French state-owned company EDF is likely to short change local firms when their main contractor awards Indoesia the manufacturing work for the NnG offshore wind farm Neart na Gaoithe.

“The contracts for jackets, part of a £2billion renewables North Sea investment, are for wind turbines to be located just 10 miles off the Fife coast.

“That work has the potential to create 1,000 green jobs - and some estimates are nearer 2,000 - at least 500 in the three-year build phase and 1,000 jobs in operating and maintaining the 25 year project.

“When installed the turbines will generate enough energy per year to power the whole of Edinburgh. Yet this - the one major infrastructure project that is ready to build in Scotland next year - is likely to yield only a fraction of its potential jobs for Scottish manufacturing yards.

“And what will make every family really angry is that we, the British public are all paying - soon £520 per family per year- in a special energy levy to fund the work about to be sent overseas.”

“Burntisland and Methil yards are desperate for the work. And it’s not just this project that could be lost to the UK. The UK Committee on Climate Change state that the UK might need up to 7,500 offshore wind turbines by 2050 in a net-zero world.

“Unless we get the terms right, and soon, more work will be lost."

Tickets for the book launch cost £5 but if you order the book alongside your ticket you receive it on entry for a total of £12.