In the 1980s, a friend of mine turned 18 (as we all did - hooray). His parents are Italian, and while he felt fully British and anglicised, his parents registered his birth both here and in Italy.

He got call-up papers. He was livid about this, and went to great lengths to find out what could be done to enforce it. Apparently not going to Italy was the answer. So he didn’t go. He was, at the time, very anti Italy anyway, and he really didn’t like his parent’s “Italianess”. The odd thing was that the rest of his family were much better to get on with than he was at times, and his sister and cousins all went back to Italy, either to do their national service (which, I understand they enjoyed), or to live there.

Italy ended national service in 2000, I believe.