THE woman who helped create Iraq is making a comeback to the country's classrooms 30 years after she was erased from the country's textbooks by Saddam Hussein.

North-East born diplomat Gertrude Bell played a pivotal role in shaping the country, but in 1973, she was removed from the history books.

The move is about to be reversed following a syllabus review in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's removal and the end of the Ba'athist regime.

An Iraq education spokesman said: "Our job is to teach children the history of Iraq, whether it was good or bad."

He said Miss Bell was a strong woman who would provide many positive examples.

She was hailed as one of the most gifted and exceptional travellers of her time, and was recruited by British Intelligence during the First World War.

As Oriental secretary to the British administration of Iraq in the early 1920s, she was included in a gathering of world experts at a conference in Egypt to determine the future of Mesopotamia.

Miss Bell was born on July 14, 1868, at Washington New Hall, on Wearside.

Her father, Hugh, was the son of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, an industrial metallurgist, and the family fortunes were rooted in the local iron and steel industry.

With the discovery of ironstone in the Cleveland Hills in 1850, the business was transferred from Tyneside to Port Clarence, near Hartlepool, which became the forerunner of British Steel.

Miss Bell lived at Red Barns, Redcar, east Cleveland, in her early years and became an intrepid adventurer.

She was renowned for her exploits as a mountaineer and developed a deep affection for the Arab peoples, learning their languages and investigating their archaeology.

She travelled deep into the desert, was recruited as a wartime spy by the British, and was a contemporary of TE Lawrence, who was better known as Lawrence of Arabia.

Miss Bell was found dead in her house in Baghdad two days before her 58th birthday.

It appeared she had taken an overdose of sleeping pills.