Del Boy never marries. He has had many girlfriends, a fact that is the subject of numerous sarcastic comments by Rodney. He finally meets his partner Raquel Turner (whom he calls his "significant other") in the 1988 special "Dates". Del's mother Joan dies on 12 March 1964, apparently after a long string of illnesses. His lazy father Reginald leaves three months later (on Del's 16th birthday), taking most of their money and even Del's birthday cake. This leaves the teenage Del as the family's sole breadwinner, looking after his grandfather and Rodney, his half-brother who was born around thirteen years after him
Raquel Ilonbé is also considered sacred. In 1981 she published "Leyendas Guineanas" (English: Guinean Legends), a collection of eight legends from the Guinean ethnic groups of the Fang, Bubi, and Ndowe. It is considered the first children's book of Equatoguinean literature. In order to get the information found in the book, she toured remote villages in Equatorial Guinea in search of disappearing oral culture. She has also published the poems "Nerea", "Ausencia", and "Amor", and written but not published the poem "Olvido". Raquel Ilonbé Raquel Ilonbé, pseudonym of Raquel del Pozo Epita (1938–1992), was an Equatoguinean poet and author, who wrote in