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and Mary Chain producers Youth – who are “massive” Skids fans – to work on the new album.

David Mack, the Leven-based artist and fellow Skids fan, also asked if he could do the sleeve.

“Having Skids fans come out of the hedgerow has been the nicest part of the process,” he adds.

Jobson, who has been living back in Dunfermline since January after years in Bedfordshire, looks back on The Skids as a “definitive part” of his early life.

The former miner’s son from Ballingry, who was a member of Dunfermline’s notorious Av Toi gang growing up, was just 15 when he first met Adamson.

Describing The Skids era as a “brilliant adventure into the world of creativity and adulthood,” he recalls how Stuart brought “structure, melody and confidence” to the band.

“My contribution was as front man,” he adds. “When he met me I was 15, confident. I could do things he could not do like my dancing.

“We were very different people. I was very itinarent. He was a home boy. If he was away from Dunfermline for a week he’d be homesick.”

Jobson was as shocked as anyone when he heard Adamson had committed suicide in Hawaii in December 2001, aged just 43.

But he says he wants to lay to rest “once and for all” speculation that he and Stuart parted on bad terms.

“He was my friend as kids,” reflects Jobson. “We were very very close.

“I want to end the rumour that our split was acrimonious.

“We just wandered off in different directions. He did Big Country and I did my thing. There was no antipathy. I didn’t fit with what he was doing and he didn’t fit with what I was doing.

“I think the ghost of him is always there in the songs. And he is there in the new songs.

“We re-engineered stuff to bring in his sound. We are very careful to his legacy and very careful with the new songs. Stuart will always be with us.”

He did Big Country and I did my thing. There was no antipathy