Based on interviews with thirty women, this article examines white attitudes to the coming of Zimbabwe's independence in 1980. As it details, many of the interviewees construct problematic versions of the past, foregrounding what Annie E. Coombes has termed the ‘deceptively benign’ nature of settler colonialism. Through an examination of the context in which the interviews were conducted, the article comments on the mobilisation of certain post-colonial narratives regarding Zimbabwe's recent past. By examining the voices of some of Southern Africa's ‘orphans of empire', it engages with existing literatures on white women and empire, settler colonialism and diaspora studies.