Raquel Turner Raquel Turner Rachel "Raquel" Turner (formerly Slater; born 4 June 1957) is a fictional character from the BBC television sit-com "Only Fools and Horses", in which she was Del Boy's longtime girlfriend. She was portrayed by Tessa Peake-Jones. With "Only Fools and Horses" moving into its sixth series, writer John Sullivan wanted Del Boy to start looking for more mature women, rather than continually chasing 20-year-olds, and to have a long-term relationship, so he came up with the character Raquel for the 1988 Christmas special episode, "Dates". During the episode, she was introduced to Del via a dating agency and
Raquel Watts anything you might see at the National". In a 2010 feature examining "Coronation Street" matriarchs, "Daily Mirror" columnist Tony Stewart named Raquel his favourite, deeming her one of the programme's funniest characters. Considering the ten best soap opera Christmas moments, "Guardian" writer Daniel Martin included the 1994 "Coronation Street" episode in which Curly names a star after Raquel, praising it as an example of the producers not taking the "easy option" of a Christmas Day wedding. The "Sunday Tribune" Diarmuid Doyle lauded the way Raquel overcame the blonde stereotype, "balancing her ditziness with real warmth and likeability and becoming one