OK, Granny, completely off the wall - how long have you had the Daphne and is it planted in the ground?
I have an image of a garden centre plant that you have had for two or three years and planted into the garden, straight out of the pot with the roots bound up in peat compost!
If so, then the roots would still be balled up in the peat; if you were to dig up the daphne then you would find that the rootball was still in the shape and size of the original pot. In this case the peat has dried out and is reluctant to absorb more water so that the daphne is still short of moisture.
If the above is correct (?) then I would lift the daphne and soak the rootball in a bucket of water for a couple of days. Then, literally, bash the compost from the roots to free them up and replant with some humus in the soil. I think that Cumbria has an acid soil? so you would not need ericaceous compost - leafmould would be ideal.
Of course, I might be completely wrong and you can just ignore the above :-)))

Thankyou. No I grew it from seed several years ago & because it was getting potbound I planted it in the garden. It has done really well up until last year with the dry spring. It is in an area of the garden shaded by trees.. perhaps too dry now but it had seemed alright. I'll add some compost to see if that helps. Not sure of the soil type though.