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 the intervening years. Lancashire and Kennedy were the only cast members to appear in Raquel's return episode, marking the first time the programme had featured just two characters. It remained the only two-hander episode of the soap for seven years, until a 2007 episode featured only mother and daughter Deirdre (Anne Kirkbride) and Tracy Barlow (Kate Ford). Raquel was well received by critics, deemed by Banks-Smith to be "the jewel in the Rovers' crown". She called Lancashire "one of the bright particular stars of "Coronation Street"", writing that Raquel, "as is the strange way of stars, shines bright long after