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.

Character creation

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".

Biography

During the episode, she was introduced to Del via a dating agency and at first the two got on well. She told Del that she was a trained actress, with ambitions to have a full-time career in the profession, although her only experiences of the business thus far had been an unsuccessful pop duo with a friend, Double Cream, various low-key stage appearances (including one headlining at the Talk of the Town, Reading, in which she fluffed her lines so badly that the crowd cheered when last orders was announced) and a one-line part in a Doctor Who episode (which may sound somewhat impressive in the modern day, but the show had a very poor reputation in 1988, and would be cancelled the following year by Michael Grade). She also mentioned that, owing to her career choice, she had long been estranged from her parents, not having seen or spoken to them for years.