AN AWARD-WINNING film about local heroine Gertrude Bell will be screened at The Forum in Northallerton later this month.

Letters From Baghdad tells the story of a remarkable woman – writer, administrator and archaeologist – who helped establish the modern state of Iraq. It shown on Friday, July 28, at 5.30pm,

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell was born at Washington Hall in County Durham in 1868 and lived for a time at Rounton Grange, near Northallerton.

She also had family connections with Mount Grace Priory, near Osmotherley.

Her stepmother, Lady Florence Bell, was president and commandant of the North Riding branch of the British Red Cross Society during the First World War.

Gertrude worked for the Red Cross in London and France during the war, indexing missing, wounded and dead soldiers so that their relatives could be informed as soon as possible.

Her widespread travels and connections meant she was considered an expert on the Middle East, and in 1916 she was asked by the British government to mediate in mapping new territories following the fall of the Ottoman empire.

This was an unprecedented role for a woman at that time, though history has given much of the credit to her colleague T E Lawrence, of Lawrence of Arabia fame.

Letters From Baghdad, narrated by award-winning actress Tilda Swinton, uses never-before-seen footage to chronicle Gertrude’s journey into the uncharted Arabian desert and inner sanctum of British male colonial power.

The Forum will stage an exhibition of First World War Auxiliary Red Cross hospitals on the night of the screening, and tea and coffee and scones will be served beforehand.