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 of the show's best-loved characters in the 1990s." Raquel had a celebrity fan in Cliff Richard, who admitted in the 2000 documentary "40 Years on Coronation Street" that he once dreamed of being cast in a walk-on role, rescuing Raquel from Curly and marrying her himself. Raquel has become a notable facet of Lancashire's career. In 2001, "The Guardian" Gareth McLean stated that while she has avoided being typecast, Raquel "may be the role for which she is best known". Fellow "Guardian" writer Paul Flynn observed in 2004 that Lancashire is "assured her place in the national psyche" because of