SVN log history woes

[tbs-Gb/NUjX2UK8 at public.gmane.org (theBlueSage)]

Hi Folks

In short, I need a way to keep commit log history per file when I merge
one branch into another in SVN. I know this is a limitation of SVN, but
I was wondering if anyone has come up with a creative solution for this
thorny issue. Also, much as I would like to move to 'git' I cant, it is
a company decision not my own and my git suggestion was shot down. oh
well.

What is happening to me is this. I start with a file foo.txt in TRUNK. I
make two edit and commits to it. if I do 'svn -log foo.txt' I will see
the text of the two commit messages.
I then create a branch from trunk. I made another 3 edits to the foo.txt
file
in the branch if I do 'svn log foo.txt' I see the original trunk commit
messages and the 3 from in the branch.

However, if I then merge foo.txt back into trunk and do svn log foo.txt
I will only see 3 commits. the two I did before the branching, and the
commit message from the merge back into trunk. I need to find a way to
see all the history.

Stackoverflow/google etc not been much help as people seem to just
accept this. I was wondering how others have addressed this
programatically?

thanks for any suggestions !

Richard