RENOWNED BBC journalist Kate Adie has entrusted her life's work to a North-East University.

The reporter has asked experts at the University of Sunderland to look after work that covers all aspects of her long and distinguished career - from her coverage of the Iran Embassy siege in 1980 to both Gulf Wars.

Ms Adie, a visiting professor of journalism at the university, has donated all of her notebooks, newspaper cuttings, radio interviews, photographs and press releases. She is also handing over more than 150 hours of her broadcasts for the BBC.

The collection covers her career at the BBC from 1968 to 2002, from her early years working at local radio stations in Durham and Bristol, and her appointment as the BBC's chief news correspondent after her coverage of the student uprising in Tiananmen Square in 1989, to her frontline work during the Sierra Leone crisis in 2000.

Stuart Halliday, of the university, said: "It is a rich collection, containing all kinds of interesting material. Most importantly, much of it is unique, existing nowhere else in the world.

"It is a real labour of love, but we're happy and proud to do it.

"The fact that it belongs to a major figure in world broadcasting who also comes from Sunderland makes it a doubly valuable acquisition for the university."

Once the process of cataloguing has been completed and a website created, the material will be available for study.