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 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