article: For a man supposedly worth millions, you would not know it by his boots. When the BBC interviewed Col Gaddafi in March, I was expecting the meeting to take place at a secret desert pavilion. Instead it was a seaside restaurant in central Tripoli. His eyes were hidden behind gold Cartier sunglasses. His flowing brown robes gave off the light scent of sandalwood. "I don't like money," he said. "I have a tent". One look at his black cowboy boots and you would think he was telling the truth. The soles were cracked and pitted, the heels worn. Last week, when I walked around his Bab al-Aziziya compound on the day it fell, I saw where the money had gone. He had a tent like no other tent in the world. But by the end of the day it was just ashes. The next image shows the last big demonstration in the Tripoli area of Tajoura before the authorities cracked down with pre-dawn raids and mass arrests. It was just after prayers one Friday in March. I went back the following week when the BBC team broke away from their government minders at the Rixos Hotel. There was no demonstration. The anti-Gaddafi graffiti had been painted over and the local imam told us many young people had been taken away during the night. Soon after we turned up, government heavies arrived in minivans to take us away. This was the last time journalists were able to move easily around the capital before it fell five months later. The next audience with Col Gaddafi was on 2 March, the anniversary of the "establishment of the people's authority". This is when Col Gaddafi says he handed over all power to the people, so he could not technically stand down. The crowd was delighted, the rest of us bemused because he arrived in a brand new golf buggy, its front seat draped with a white sheepskin rug. He talked for three hours. Occasionally he allowed some chants and cheers, and then tapped his microphone, at which the crowd promptly shut up. The last time I saw Col Gaddafi, he was driving his buggy towards a lamp post. But his security team cleared a path and he drove off with two secret service types clinging to the back. This was one of the government soldiers who had taken back the town of Zawiya, near Tripoli, from the rebels. The fighting was brutal as was the treatment of those arrested by the authorities. Some BBC colleagues were detained for 24 hours and subjected to mock executions. When journalists did get in, it was by media bus under strict supervision of the authorities, but the green-and-white bunting could not hide the scale of the destruction. The makeshift cemetery in the town square, where the rebels had buried their fallen fighters, had been bulldozed. The rebels winning it back proved to be a turning point in the war. The man below was typical of the rebel fighters on the eastern front outside Ajdabiya in April. They were mostly disorganised
summary: BBC's Middle East Bureau Editor Paul Danahar reflects on six months of covering the Libyan uprising from both sides of the conflict, using pictures of some of his more memorable moments.