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This memoir may well be honest (although I am not fully convinced of that), but that doesn't make it appealing to me. If we were in the P&R forum I could name several people whose memoirs I would fully expect to make me angry, I just didn't expect it in this case. I guess that, knowing how conservative farmers can be, I should not have been surprised, but I can't help wishing it was otherwise because I was expecting better.
I'm inclined to do a Jane Bennett* and try to make them all seem good and agreeable, so:
James Rebanks wrote the book this way so that his neighbours won't react badly. Probably some of his neighbours were there with him at 13 years old, pushing around others and breaking things, and these days they might even brag about it down the pub; so to apologise in writing would send the signal that he disapproves of his neighbours, and that won't do. (Offered tongue-in-cheek, but something along these lines may well have influenced his writing.)
But, in the Jane Bennett spirit of this interpretation, James has underestimated his neighbours; they might brag about their childhood exploits but with abashed smiles, so the author really doesn't need to try and hide his better nature.
* I'm guessing Pride and Prejudice sprang to mind because Lizzy was supposed to go on a tour of the Lakes ... at least I can't think why else it would occur to me ... unless I am seeing something of Mr Wickham in our Mr Rebanks.
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